TikTok CEO faces off with US Cong

The CEO of TikTok made a rare public appearance on Thursday before a US Congressional committee, where he faced a grilling on data security and user safety while he makes his own case for why the hugely popular video-sharing app shouldn’t be banned. Shou Zi Chew’s testimony comes at a crucial time for the company, which has acquired 150 million American users but is under increasing pressure from US officials. TikTok and its parent company ByteDance have been swept up in a wider geopolitical battle between Beijing and Washington over trade and technology. In her opening statement, Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers, a Republican, assailed the social platform’s trustworthiness because of its close ties to Beijing.