MUST WATCH: Greg Pence Directly Confronts TikTok's CEO Shou Chew During Landmark House Hearing

Depends for five minutes. Thank you, Chairwoman Rogers and Ranking Member Pallone, for holding this hearing. I love both of your opening remarks. Like my colleagues have discussed, today's increasingly digital world leaves Hoosiers and all Americans in the dark about who has access to their information. For TikTok users, that could be third-party data brokers, advertisers, or the Chinese Communist Party. TikTok aggressively feeds addictive content to users to glean massive amounts of personal data that's worth a fortune. For Hoosiers watching at home, this isn't just data about your favorite sports team. You know, if there really are 150 million users in the US, this suggests to me that the CCP has a finger on the pulse of almost half our nation's population. I find that hard to believe, but this week I decided I would ask my constituents in Southern Indiana to share their stories with me. Went out Monday night, and we got 800 responses in less than 12 hours. Okay, let me share a couple of those with you. One of my constituents shared, I quote: 'I'm a mental health counselor. Most of my teenage clients are on TikTok. They spend hours online being negatively influenced by others. I have seen kids experience self-harm, gender dysphoria, and many mental illnesses they have picked up from TikTok. I will not allow my children to have TikTok. The creators know the algorithms are addicting our children. They know that children are suffering more anxiety and depression from screen time, but they do not care. They will not change their algorithms because it's financially lucrative for them to keep their kids addicted.' Another parent said: 'We let our daughter try it out. The feed was continuously suggesting sexually explicit, stupid, and vulgar videos. We discontinued it within a week.' And there's been many more, many more, like I said, 800. Okay, in your testimony, Mr. Chew, you walk through a number of supposed actions taken by your company to create a safe environment, empower parents to oversee content shown to their children. But virtually everything we've heard reflects the opposite. And some of your answers are a little confusing. You know, all of those sitting here, and maybe watching on C-SPAN, this is the 32nd hearing we have held about privacy and Big Tech. Each hearing I've been part of, we've heard the same stories about our constituents' experience and the same promises for Big Tech to do better. The truth of the matter is, this disgusting and dangerous content littered across your platform is not justifiable, and it's uncontrollable. Americans' data is not safe, and Big Tech is doing nothing to protect it. Putting aside the dangers of the CCP involvement, and after these 32 hearings, I believe it's actually time to change the narrative, change the focus, and change the outcome by talking about the money you're making at TikTok, Mr. Chew. I have a question: how much revenue is generated per user?

You're not going to tell me? Does each user receive a comparable benefit for the amount of profit their data brings to your company?

When am I going to get paid for the data that you are selling? Or you're getting revenue from advertisers. When am I going to get paid for the data you're getting from my children, my grandchildren, my neighbors? I think that's the only way to get your attention, is to talk about the money you're making, and maybe that'll get you all to do what you're supposed to do.

But what am I getting? It's a great experience? What about these 800 bad experiences of people in the Indiana 6th District have been getting? 'We will look into them.' 'We're going to look into it.' But this is my 30– this is a 30-second Big Tech hearing, and you're always going to look into it. Frankly, I think you're all stalling. That's what you're doing. You're just trying to buy time while you're making the 18 billion, perhaps whatever you're making.

I think it's your duty to pay attention to what you're doing. And maybe paying people for the information that you're getting from them is a way to get that done. Thank you. You back, gentlemen, yield back.