CEO of Tiktok, Bytedance
Ted Cruz UNLEASHES on Mark Zuckerberg and Shou Chew - Protecting Kids On Social Media
Senator Ted Cruz, in a Senate hearing on protecting children online, social media executives including Mark Zuckerberg and Shou Chew were grilled about their policies and how to better protect kids from the dangerous content found on social media platforms.
#politics #socialmedia #facebook
About Shou Chew
Shou Chew, CEO of TikTok, has continued to address concerns about data security, child safety, and the platform's relationship with the Chinese government. In a March 2023 appearance before the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee, Chew stated that ByteDance is not owned or controlled by the Chinese government, describing it as a private company. He outlined "Project Texas," an initiative he said involves storing U.S. user data on Oracle servers in the United States, overseen by American personnel. Chew also testified that TikTok does not share U.S. user data with the Chinese government and would not honor a request to do so. During a January 2025 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on child online safety, Chew described TikTok's policies, including a 13-and-up age requirement, default private accounts for users under 16, and a 60-minute screen time limit for users under 18. He stated that the company had invested more than $2 billion in trust and safety efforts that year and employed over 40,000 trust and safety professionals globally. In other public appearances, Chew has emphasized TikTok's economic impact and its use of AI. At the APEC CEO Summit in November 2024, he said the company had invested over $1.5 billion to secure U.S. user data and planned to spend 12 billion euros over the next decade on data protection in Europe. He also stated that TikTok supported nearly a quarter-million jobs in the U.S. and contributed almost $24 billion to the country's GDP. At the FII8 conference in October 2024, Chew discussed the platform's recommendation algorithm, describing it as based on machine learning and interest signals rather than follower counts. He also noted that 125,000 businesses in Saudi Arabia use the platform. Chew has stated that the company is investing billions of dollars in Indonesia and Southeast Asia, including a $12.2 million commitment to support small and medium-sized businesses.
Transcript (45 segments)
✨ AI-enhanced transcript with speaker attribution
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Senator0:00
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Social media is a very powerful tool, but we're here because every parent I know, and I think every parent in America, is terrified about the garbage that is directed at our kids. I have two teenagers at home, and the phones they have are portals to predators, to viciousness, to bullying, to self-harm. And each of your companies could do a lot more to prevent it. Mr. Zuckerberg, in June of 2023, The Wall Street Journal reported that Instagram's recommendation systems were actively connecting pedophiles to accounts that were advertising the sale of child sexual abuse material. In many cases, those accounts appear to be run by underage children themselves, often using code words and emojis to advertise illicit material. In other cases, the accounts included indicia that the victim was being sex trafficked. I know that Instagram has a team that works to prevent the abuse and exploitation of children online, but what was particularly concerning about the Wall Street Journal exposé was the degree to which Instagram's own algorithm was promoting the discoverability of victims for pedophiles seeking child abuse material. In other words, this material wasn't just living in the dark corners of Instagram; Instagram was helping pedophiles find it by promoting graphic hashtags, including hashtag ped wh and hash preen sex, to potential buyers. Instagram also displayed the following warning screen to individuals who were searching for child abuse material: 'These results may contain images of child sexual abuse.' And then you gave users two choices: get resources or see results anyway. Mr. Zuckerberg, what the hell were you thinking?
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Mark Zuckerberg2:26
All right, Senator. The basic science behind that is that when people are searching for something that is problematic, it's often helpful, rather than just blocking it, to help direct them towards something that could be helpful for getting them to get help.
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Senator2:44
In what universe is there a link for 'see results anyway'?
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Mark Zuckerberg2:49
Well, because we might be wrong. We try to trigger this warning, or we tried to, when we think that there's any chance that the result...
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Senator3:00
Okay, you might be wrong. Let me ask you: how many times was this wording screen displayed?
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Mark Zuckerberg3:05
I don't know.
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Senator3:07
You don't know. Why don't you know?
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Mark Zuckerberg3:09
I don't know the answer to that off the top of my head.
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Senator3:13
Well, you know what, Mr. Zuckerberg? It's interesting you say you don't know it off the top of your head, because I asked it in June of 2023 in an oversight letter, and your company refused to answer. Will you commit right now to within five days answering this question for this committee?
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Mark Zuckerberg3:28
We'll follow up on that.
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Senator3:30
Is that a yes? Not 'will follow up.' I know how lawyers write statements saying we're not going to answer. Will you tell us how many times this warning screen was displayed? Yes or no?
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Mark Zuckerberg3:40
Senator, I'll personally look into it. I'm not sure if we have...
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Senator3:43
So you're refusing to answer that. Let me ask you this: how many times did an Instagram user who got this warning that you're seeing images of child sexual abuse, how many times did that user click on 'see results anyway'?
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Mark Zuckerberg3:56
Senator, I'm not sure if we have that, but I'll personally look into this and we'll follow up after.
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Senator4:01
And what follow-up did Instagram do when you have a potential pedophile clicking on 'I'd like to see child porn'? What did you do next when that happened?
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Mark Zuckerberg4:14
Senator, I think that an important piece of context here is that any content that we think is child sexual...
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Senator4:21
Zuckerberg, that's called a question. What did you do next when someone clicked? You may be getting child sexual abuse images and they click 'see results anyway.' What was your next step? You said you might be wrong. Did anyone examine whether it was in fact child sexual abuse material? Did anyone report that user? Did anyone go and try to protect that child? What did you do next?
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Mark Zuckerberg4:49
Senator, we take down anything that we think is sexual abuse material on the service, and we do...
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Senator4:54
Did anyone verify whether it was in fact child sexual abuse material?
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Mark Zuckerberg4:58
Senator, I don't know if every single search result we followed up on.
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Senator5:02
But did you report the people who wanted it?
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Mark Zuckerberg5:04
Do you want me to answer your question?
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Senator5:05
I want you to answer the question I'm asking. Did you report the people who click 'see results anyway'?
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Mark Zuckerberg5:10
That's probably one of the factors that we use in reporting. And in general, we've reported more people and done more reports like this to NCMEC, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, than any other company in the industry. We proactively go out of our way across our services to do this and have made, I think, more than 26 million reports, which is more than the whole rest of the industry combined.
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Senator5:35
So, Mr. Zuckerberg, your company and every social media company needs to do much more to protect children. All right, Mr. Chu, in the next couple of minutes I have, I want to turn to you. Are you familiar with China's 2017 National Intelligence Law, which states, quote, 'All organizations and citizens shall support, assist, and cooperate with national intelligence efforts in accordance with the law and shall protect national intelligence work secrets they are aware of'?
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Shou Chew6:02
Yes, I'm familiar with this.
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Senator6:05
TikTok is owned by ByteDance. Is ByteDance subject to the law?
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Shou Chew6:10
For the Chinese businesses that ByteDance owns, yes, it will be subject to this. But TikTok is not available in mainland China, and Senator, as we talked about in your office, we built Project Texas to put this out of reach.
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Senator6:22
So ByteDance is subject to the law. Now, under this law, which says 'shall protect national intelligence work secrets they are aware of,' it compels people subject to the law to lie to protect those secrets. Is that correct?
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Shou Chew6:38
I cannot comment on that. What I said again is that we have, because...
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Senator6:44
You have to protect those secrets.
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Shou Chew6:46
No, Senator. We, TikTok is not available in mainland China. We have moved the data into an American cloud infrastructure.
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Senator6:53
It's controlled by ByteDance, which is subject to this law. Now, you said earlier, and I wrote this down: 'We have not been asked for any data by the Chinese government, and we have never provided it.' I'm going to tell you, and I told this when you and I met last week in my office, I do not believe you. And I'll tell you the American people don't either. If you look at what is on TikTok in China, you are promoting to kids science and math videos, educational videos, and you limit the amount of time kids can be on TikTok. In the United States, you are promoting to kids self-harm videos and anti-Israel propaganda. Why is there such a dramatic difference?
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Shou Chew7:40
Senator, that is just not accurate. There is not a difference between what kids see in China and what kids see here. Senator, TikTok is not available in China. It's a separate experience there.
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Senator7:51
But you have a company that is essentially the same, except it promotes beneficial materials instead of harmful materials.
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Shou Chew7:58
That is not true. We have a lot of science and math content here on TikTok. There's so much of it.
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Senator8:04
Let me point to this, Mr. Chu. There was a report recently that compared hashtags on Instagram to hashtags on TikTok and what trended, and the differences were striking. So for something like hashtag Taylor Swift or hashtag Trump, researchers found roughly two Instagram posts for every one on TikTok. That's not a dramatic difference. That difference jumps to 8 to 1 for the hashtag WeChat, and it jumps to 30 to 1 for the hashtag Tibet, and it jumps to 57 to 1 for the hashtag Tiananmen Square, and it jumps to 174 to 1 for the hashtag Hong Kong protest. Why is it that on Instagram people can put up a hashtag Hong Kong protest 174 times compared to TikTok? What censorship is TikTok doing at the request of the Chinese government?
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Shou Chew9:10
None, Senator. That analysis is flawed. It has been debunked by other external sources like the Ko Institute. Fundamentally, a few things happen here. Not all videos carry hashtags, that's the first thing. The second thing is that you cannot selectively choose a few words within a certain time.
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Senator9:26
Why the difference between Taylor Swift and Tiananmen Square? What happened in Tiananmen Square?
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Shou Chew9:30
Senator, there was a massive protest during that time. But what I'm trying to say is our users can freely come and post this.
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Senator9:38
Why would there be no difference on Taylor Swift or a minimal difference, and a massive difference on Tiananmen Square or Hong Kong?
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Shou Chew9:44
Senator, could you wrap up, please? Senator, our algorithm does not suppress any content simply based on...
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Senator9:49
Answer that question. Why is there a difference?
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Shou Chew9:52
Like I said, I think this analysis is flawed. You're selectively choosing some words over some periods. We haven't been around as long.
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Senator9:58
Obvious difference. 174 to 1 for Hong Kong compared to Taylor Swift is dramatic.