GOP senator Cotton asks TikTok's CEO over and over if he's ever been part of the Chinese Communist Party. He's Singaporean.
GOP senator asks TikTok's CEO over and over if he's Chinese. He's Singaporean.
"so, are you Chinese or Japanese?"
"Are you telling me Russians and Indians are also Asians?"
That is disturbing.
Bold move, Cotton
Let's see how it plays out...
as much as i hat how tiktok runs their platform, as well as the CCP and how they run the country, that senator is an asshole trying to make it about him being chinese and all of the discourse attached to that topic.
Direct link to video clip of the exchange: https://x.com/NBCNews/status/1752761046593401197
What the actual fuck. Was he trying to get him to go all CCP on him and denounce the massacre at Tiananmen Square? What a fucking racist piece of shit.
yea, he expected him not to be willing to discuss Tienanmen Square, since no one in china would want to discuss the genocide.
Of course, considering hes not Chinese, he had not problem.
Someone should repost this to a cringe sub
While it's a stupid question which he wouldn't have asked a white guy, it's not wholly illegitimate. Shou Zi Chew has major business ties to Mainland China, which is not a secret.
As a Singaporean myself, I'm not sure what the gotcha here is? Just because you're Singaporean doesn't mean you won't have connections with the CCP. There's a case that happened recently where a Singaporean spied on the US for China.
It doesn't help that Singaporean Chinese have been the target of psyops from China. It's not an uncommon train of thought from China that all ethnic Chinese regardless of their nationality owe their loyalty to China.
Even if he was. Who cares? Why would it matter
Pretty sure they're trying to make "we need more control over the internet" into a national security issue, similar to during the cold war. So basically tie him in with a party people in the US really dislike.
Pretty sure they’re trying to make “we need more control over the internet” into a national security issue
This is exactly it. Section 230 already has limitations, if a site fails to act when notified they lose the protections. However, the government have completely failed in their responsibility to actually enforce it. Instead, we get the classic "think of the children!!" bullshit while they try and rip away key parts of how the internet functions.
The GOP is worried that their attacks on Taylor Swift is driving away younger voters, so they're going to pivot to a TikTok ban
It wouldn't. Just like how the Senator's next question about Tiananmen Square and follow up false statement about "hundreds of thousands" of people dying there also has nothing to do with it.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
During Wednesday's tense congressional testimony over online safety for children, Sen. Tom Cotton repeatedly asked Singaporean TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew if he's ever been a part of the Chinese Communist Party.
Chew was joined by four other social media companies' CEOs Wednesday for a combative hearing on protecting children online in the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Other companies represented included X, Meta, Snap, and Discord, all of which have come under fire for failing to protect children from online predators, harassment, or exploitation, among other issues.
"The worries about Chinese influence through the parent company are harder to put to bed," Jamie MacEwan, senior media analyst at Enders Analysis, previously told Business Insider.
"So long as ByteDance is the owner, it will be difficult to convince politicians that managers in Beijing are not exercising undue operational control, or accessing sensitive data, whatever internal measures have been put in place," MacEwan said.
During another tense hearing before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce in March 2023, Zaveri noted, lawmakers bungled Chew's name, pressed him on whether he had ties to China, and failed to give him a chance to respond during rants on the Chinese Communist Party.
The original article contains 325 words, the summary contains 197 words. Saved 39%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
I'm guessing Tom Cotton thinks, "they all look alike."
Cotton looks like pretty much every other Republican senator to me, except maybe a little younger. All these R WASPs are the same to me.
I never realized how similar wasps were to each other. Though I actually love the ones that fly with their own wings and wouldn't mind being able to call an exterminator for the ones who have to use planes