At his first Congressional hearing, TikTok CEO Shou Chew tried to downplay TikTok’s ties to China and parent company ByteDance. But lawmakers at the House Energy and Commerce Committee were far from satisfied with his answers.

In her opening statements, committee chair Representative Cathy Rodgers said that TikTok should be banned. "ByteDance is beholden to the CCP [Chinese Communist Party], and ByteDance and TikTok are one and the same," she said.

Chew, who in his written testimony said that “ByteDance is not an agent of China” repeatedly pointed to Project Texas, the company’s sweeping plan to lock down US users’ data in the United States. But lawmakers on the committee were skeptical of the plan, which TikTok officials have said would do more to protect users than an outright ban.

Chew repeated multiple times that US user data would be inaccessible to employees in other countries “after Project Texas” is completed later this year. Still, committee members were skeptical of the plan, which has been in the works for more than a year. Rodgers called it a “marketing scheme,” Representative Frank Pallone said "Project Texas is simply not acceptable," and Representative Angie Craig said the plan “doesn’t pass the smell test.”

The more than five-hour showdown between Chew and lawmakers, who have found suspicion of TikTok to be a rare source of bipartisan agreement, comes as US officials have told the company it could ban the app if it doesn’t separate itself from ByteDance.

As with previous hearings with social media executives, lawmakers pressed Chew for yes or no answers to complex questions, and grew frustrated when he declined to give one. In one exchange, Representative Tony Cardenas asked Chew whether ByteDance was a Chinese company. He would only admit that it was a “global” firm with a Chinese founder. In another, Representative Debbie Lesko asked if he would agree with a statement that the Chinese government persecutes the Uighur population in China. He would only say that "it's deeply concerning to hear about all the kinds of human rights abuse" and tried to pivot to saying those statements are allowed on TikTok.

And Chew dodged other questions about the inner workings of ByteDance and its China-based employees. He was sharply criticized for his response to a question about whether ByteDance employees had spied on American journalists. “I don’t think ‘spying’ is the right way to describe it,” Chew said. “This is ultimately an internal investigation.” (TikTok was quick to point out Chew denied ‘spying’ had happened at the direction of the Chinese Communist Party.)

The hearing was also notably different than previous hearings with other social media company CEOs because the vast majority of lawmakers are not active on TikTok. Not all of their questions were nuanced, though. At one point, Representative Richard Hudson demanded to know whether TikTok can “access the home WiFi network.” And multiple lawmakers asked why TikTok’s moderation practices are different from the aggressive censorship of its Chinese counterpart, Douyin.

Beyond national security concerns, several lawmakers also raised the issue of teen safety, including TikTok’s content moderation practices and how it deals with viral “challenges.” Chew often pointed to recent updates like TikTok’d addition of a STEM-themed feed, new screentime settings and algorithm tweaks to limit “repetitive patterns” of potentially harmful content.

But, after more than five hours of questioning, it seemed his testimony hadn’t done much to persuade the members of the committee that Project Texas will be able to address their concerns. 

For now, TikTok’s future is uncertain, and even Chew seemed unwilling to speculate. Chinese officials said Thursday they oppose a sale of TikTok. When asked in the hearing if he agreed with those comments, Chew instead pointed to Project Texas."We will need to look at this because Project Texas is designed to move forward here in the United States and we are not discussing this," he said.

TikTok CEO Shou Chew is preparing to tell lawmakers that there are many “misconceptions” about the app, and that banning it will damage the United States economy. He’s also planning to tell members of Congress that concerns about parent company ByteDance, and its ties to China, are unfounded.

“Let me state this unequivocally: ByteDance is not an agent of China or any other country,” Chew says in written remarks released by the House Energy and Commerce Committee ahead of Thursday’s hearing on TikTok. The hearing, which will mark Chew’s first Congressional appearance, comes at a moment when the stakes couldn’t be higher for the company.

US officials recently told the company that TikTok could be banned in the United States if ByteDance doesn’t divest itself from the company. And members of both parties have supported bills that would empower President Joe Biden and others in his administration to ban the app.

Much of Chew’s written testimony is similar to arguments TikTok has been making for years. He details the app’s safety features, particularly those aimed at teens, as well as Project Texas, TikTok’s billion-dollar effort to lock down US users’ data. “Earlier this month, we began the process of deleting historical protected U.S. user data stored in non-Oracle servers; we expect this process to be completed later this year,” Chew writes. “Under this structure, there is no way for the Chinese government to access it or compel access to it.”

Chew’s written testimony also touches on revelations that four former ByteDance employees used TikTok to access the data of US journalists. The incident, which further fueled lawmakers’ concerns about TikTok, has reportedly prompted a DoJ investigation into the company. “I condemn this misconduct in the strongest possible terms,” Chew wrote, noting that the company is conducting an investigation with an outside law firm.

But most notable are Chew’s comments about China. He says that allegations that TikTok is “beholden to the Chinese government” are “emphatically untrue” and describes ByteDance as a “global enterprise” that was “founded by Chinese entrepreneurs.”

Despite those assurances, lawmakers are likely to grill Chew in depth about TikTok’s ties to ByteDance and China, and whether the company can be trusted to protect US users. At a previous hearing, when lawmakers heard from TikTok COO Vanessa Pappas, they were frustrated by her insistence that ByteDance was not a Chinese company, and pressed her about TikTok’s China-based employees. How Chew answers similar questions could directly affect the TikTok's future in the United States. 

Disentangling ourselves from TikTok is more complicated than simply banning the app, just ask the state of Maryland. According to a new report in The Wall Street Journal, it’s one of several states that used TikTok’s tracking pixel on a government website despite a statewide ban barring TikTok-related software from official devices and networks.

According to the report, Maryland was one of 27 states that had code for TikTok’s tracking pixel embedded in an official government website. While these types of tools are extremely common — tracking pixels help online advertisers target their ads — their use has also been widely criticized by privacy advocates.

In Maryland’s case, the TikTok pixels were reportedly found on a state-run COVID website and were related to an ad campaign from last year. Likewise, TikTok’s pixel was also found on a website run by Utah's Department of Workforce Services, which told The Wall Street Journal the pixel was used for an ad campaign targeting job seekers. Like Maryland, Utah has also banned TikTok from government devices.

The report underscores how, even with bans in place, governments are finding it difficult to disentangle themselves from TikTok completely. The company is currently grappling with the threat of a nationwide ban in the United States if parent company ByteDance doesn’t divest its stake in the service. CEO Shou Zi Chew is set to testify in a Congressional hearing on Thursday, when he will make the case that banning the app would hurt its 150 million American users.

Elsewhere, a new report in Forbes highlighted other issues that a nationwide ban may not fully resolve. According to the report, the personal data of TikTok users from India is still accessible to TikTok and ByteDance employees, despite the country banning the app in 2020. Forbes points out that this is likely due to the terms of India’s ban, which apparently “did not seem to call for deletion of app data that had already been captured and stored.”

Even so, it’s not the first time security experts have questioned whether it would ever be possible to “claw back” TikTok user data that’s already been collected by the company. In an odd way, that may make it a bit easier for TikTok to argue that an outright ban would be less effective than its multibillion-dollar plan to impose strict data controls and other measures meant to lock down US user data. That plan, known as Project Texas, has so far failed to persuade lawmakers and the Treasury Department officials involved in the years-long negotiations with TikTok.

As TikTok gears up for its latest fight to not get banned in the United States, the company is again trying to increase transparency around how it operates. TikTok revealed an updated set of community guidelines, the sweeping set of rules that dictates what creators are allowed to post on its platform. The changes come just days ahead of CEO Shou Zi Chew’s first-ever Congressional appearance, where he will be grilled about allegations TikTok is a threat to national security.

The company has been on a charm offensive to fend off these claims, and has recently made efforts to demystify its algorithm, policies and moderation practices. Likewise, the newly updated community guidelines, set to take effect next month, contain more details about the platform’s rules and how it enforces them.

Though TikTok calls it “the most comprehensive updates to our Community Guidelines to date,” many of the actual changes are tweaks to existing policies rather than completely new or rewritten guidelines. One notable exception is that the new guidelines include an entire section dedicated to AI-generated and “synthetic media.” While the company first came out with rules banning misleading manipulated media ahead of the 2020 presidential election, the updated guidelines are much more explicit about how Ai-generated content can be used on the platform.

“Synthetic media or manipulated [media] that shows realistic scenes must be clearly disclosed,” the new guidelines state, “This can be done through the use of a sticker or caption, such as ‘synthetic,’ ‘fake,’ ‘not real,’ or ‘altered.’” The rules also note that synthetic media of “any real private figure” is prohibited and that AI generated content showing public figures, like a celebrity, cannot be used for political or commercial endorsements.

Of course, TikTok is facing much bigger issues right now than the clarity of its community guidelines. Federal officials have told parent company ByteDance that TikTok could face a total ban in the United States if the Chinese firm doesn’t sell its stake in the app. Meanwhile, the company argued that a ban would hurt its 150 million US users, including small businesses and creators.

In December, ByteDance confirmed that it fired four employees who had used TikTok to spy on the locations of two journalists. Now, Forbesreports that the FBI and the Department of Justice have been investigating the incident.

News of the investigation comes at a moment when ByteDance is facing mounting pressure to sell its stake in TikTok. The company confirmed that US officials have said that TikTok will face a possible ban in the United States if ByteDance doesn’t separate itself from the video app.

TikTok critics in Congress have previously raised questions about the app’s surveillance tactics, particularly in light of ByteDance’s acknowledgement that employees had inappropriately accessed the data of US users.The full extent of law enforcement’s investigation into the incident is unclear but, according to Forbes, ByteDance has received subpoenas from the DoJ. The FBI has also conducted interviews related to the matter, though it’s not clear if the two are part of the same investigation.

"We have strongly condemned the actions of the individuals found to have been involved, and they are no longer employed at ByteDance,” a ByteDance spokesperson said in a statement. “Our internal investigation is still ongoing, and we will cooperate with any official investigations when brought to us."

The Biden Administration is significantly increasing pressure on ByteDance just days before TikTok’s CEO is set to testify in front of Congress. The United States government is now “demanding” that ByteDance sell TikTok, according to a new report in The Wall Street Journal.

The new demand, which TikTok confirmed to Reuters, is a major blow to the company, which has spent more than two years negotiating with the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) over its future in the country. Those negotiations resulted in a sweeping partnership with Oracle and other measures meant to safeguard US users' data.

Now, CFIUS has reportedly told TikTok that it wants ByteDance to sell its stake in the company after all. If it doesn’t, the app could face a national ban. The House and the Senate have both recently introduced bills that would make it easier for government officials to ban TikTok and other services deemed to be a national security threat.

TikTok didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. The company has previously stated that divesting from ByteDance wouldn’t address the government’s underlying concerns about data security. However, Bloomberg reported earlier in the week that TikTok executives were “discussing the possibility of separating from ByteDance” if the CFIUS talks were to fall through.

Of course, this isn’t the first time the United States government has tried to force ByteDance’s hand. Former President Donald Trump also attempted to compel TikTok to sell itself, but was ultimately unsuccessful. The latest threats of a total ban on the app are, however, sure to amp up pressure on TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew, who is set to make his first Congressional appearance next week.

LinkedIn is the latest platform to hop on the generative AI bandwagon. The company is adding AI-powered “writing suggestions” and job descriptions to its service as it looks for new ways to infuse AI into its platform.

The writing suggestions are meant to make it easier to fill out key profile fields that LinkedIn says can otherwise feel “daunting” to complete: the “about” and “headline” sections near the top of each profile. Now, with the new “enhance” tool, LinkedIn Premium subscribers can generate descriptions based on their experience.

The company says the tool, which uses the same OpenAI models that power ChatGPT, is meant to preserve “your unique voice and style” and will draw from your job experience and skills, as well as LinkedIn’s own “insights” into what makes a good profile. In an example of a completed “about” section provided by LinkedIn, the tool generated a first-person summary of an individual’s job experience that reads almost like the beginning of a cover letter.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn also says it’s starting to test AI-written job descriptions. In those cases, hiring managers will simply need to fill out the job title, company name and a few other basic details, and LinkedIn will create a detailed draft of a relevant job description.

Of note, the company is positioning its AI writing features as more of a starting point than a final product. In both cases, LinkedIn says that users should review and edit the AI-generated text to check for accuracy. But the company says that both could be a major time saver for members who want to offload some of the more tedious writing tasks associated with LinkedIn.

These writing tools aren’t LinkedIn’s first foray into generative AI. The company also recently introduced “collaborative articles,” which rely on a combination of AI-written text as well as contributions from individual LinkedIn “experts.” Elsewhere, the company is also adding new online courses dedicated to generative AI-related topics.

Meta is “winding down” its support for NFTs on Facebook and Instagram less than a year after its push to adopt “digital collectibles” across its platform. The update comes as the social network has laid off thousands of workers and shuttered numerous projects amid what Mark Zuckerberg has described as the company’s “year of efficiency.”

“We’re winding down digital collectibles (NFTs) for now to focus on other ways to support creators, people, and businesses,” Stephane Kasriel, Meta’s Head of Commerce and Financial Technologies wrote in an update shared on Twitter. “We learned a ton that we’ll be able to apply to products we’re continuing to build to support creators, people, and businesses on our apps, both today and in the metaverse.” He added that the company would instead be focusing on “monetization opps for Reels” and “messaging payments across Meta.”

The update comes almost exactly a year after Zuckerberg took the SXSW stage to announce that Instagram was working on NFT support, which debuted last May. The company announced another significant expansion of the feature in November, when it revealed plans to allow creators to mint and sell the collectibles directly on Instagram.

Kasriel didn’t elaborate on why Meta was reversing course on NFTs, which Zuckerberg had suggested could play a role in the company’s metaverse plans. “I would hope that you know, the clothing that your avatar is wearing in the metaverse, you know, can be basically minted as an NFT and you can take it between your different places,” he said during his SXSW appearance last year.

But it’s not the only once-ambitious initiative that has fallen flat in the last year. Meta also shuttered its crypto wallet, Novi, which was once rumored to have NFT support on its roadmap, last year. The company has also cut projects with its metaverse division, Reality Labs, and its program that paid bonuses to Reels creators.

The sudden collapse of Silicon Valley Bank has put more than a quarter of Roku’s cash at risk. The streaming company had nearly $500 million, representing 26 percent of its cash, in Silicon Valley Bank, the company disclosed in an SEC filing Friday.

The future of those funds is now uncertain as federal regulators have taken over the financial institution amid the second-largest bank collapse in United States history. “The Company’s deposits with SVB are largely uninsured,” Roku wrote in its filing. “At this time, the Company does not know to what extent the Company will be able to recover its cash on deposit at SVB.”

In a statement on Friday, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) said that it will pay “uninsured depositors an advance dividend within the next week” and that “uninsured depositors will receive a receivership certificate for the remaining amount of their uninsured funds.” But there’s still a lot of uncertainty about how long that process will take to play out, and how much of their uninsured funds companies will ultimately be able to recover.

However, Roku’s situation is, at least for now, a lot less dire than many of the smaller startups that relied on Silicon Valley Bank, some of which are now unable to pay their bills or their employees. 

In its SEC filing, the company noted that it has more than a billion dollars in cash at multiple other banks. “As stated in our 8-K, we expect that Roku’s ability to operate and meet its contractual obligations will not be impacted and we continue to have access to $1.4 billion in cash and cash equivalents which are distributed across multiple, large financial institutions,” a Roku spokesperson said in a statement to Engadget.

While Silicon Valley Bank was previously a little-known institution, it was known for its close relationships with startup founders, who made up much of its clientele. But, as Bloomberg’s Matt Levine explains, the bank’s reliance on fixed-rate assets, also made it uniquely exposed to the conditions that ultimately led to a run on the bank Thursday after prominent venture capitalists urged founders to move their money out of the institution.

Roku is not the only major public tech company now facing losses as a result of the bank’s collapse. Roblox had $3 billion, about 5 percent of its cash, at Silicon Valley Bank, the company told the SEC. “Regardless of the ultimate outcome and the timing, this situation will have no impact on the day to day operations of the Company,” it wrote in a filing. Video service Vimeo also disclosed that it had “less than $250,000” with the bank.

Meta seems to be phasing out one of the key initiatives that helped Reels creators on Facebook and Instagram get paid. The company is “pausing” its Reels Play bonus program, Insiderreports.

The program, originally introduced in December of 2021, offered creators monthly payouts if they hit certain view counts and other metrics. The incentives, which promised that top-performing creators could earn as much as $35,000 a month, were part of a larger push by Meta to funnel money into creator monetization programs as it tried to make Reels more competitive with TikTok.

But now, Meta says it’s “evolving” the program and will “stop extending new and renewed Reels Play deals for creators on Facebook and for US creators on Instagram at this time,” according to a statement provided to Insider. The company noted that it may still offer bonuses to creators in more “targeted” ways, like if Reels enters a new market.

As Insider points out, the company is phasing out the payments as it gets ready to expand advertising on Reels, which would enable more traditional revenue sharing arrangements for creators. Tom Alison, who heads up the Facebook app at Meta, alluded to the shift earlier this week in a blog post about the company’s priorities. “We’ll continue expanding our ads on Facebook Reels tests to help more creators earn ad revenue for their Reels and grow virtual gifting via Stars on Reels,” he wrote.

Though he didn’t give a timeline for when Facebook and instagram users can expect to see these “tests” expand, the fact that the company is now putting the brakes on its bonus program suggests Reels' big ad expansion might not be far off.