TikTok Executive Won’t Commit to Halting Flow of Americans’ Data to China

TikTok Executive Won’t Commit to Halting Flow of Americans’ Data to China
Chief Product Officer of Meta Chris Cox, Chief Product Officer of YouTube Neal Mohan, Chief Operating Officer of TikTok Vanessa Pappas, and General Manager of Bluebird of Twitter Jay Sullivan are sworn in during a hearing before Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee in Washington Sept. 14, 2022. Alex Wong/Getty Images
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A TikTok executive declined on Sept. 14 to make a commitment that the hugely popular short-video app would cut off flows of Americans’ data to China, during the first U.S. Senate hearing since recent reports on the company’s connections to the regime in Beijing.

TikTok Chief Operating Officer Vanessa Pappas, along with executives from other U.S. big tech companies, testified before the Senate Homeland Security Committee. During the hearing, Pappas faced a barrage of questions regarding Tiktok’s ties to Beijing and the potential for U.S. users’ data to be obtained by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which has become a bipartisan concern.