Political Quotes

“I would like to expound a little bit on what Senator Cantwell just said. It has been made absolutely clear that a number of Chinese laws require Chinese companies and their subsidiaries to assist PRC security agencies and abide by the secret and unchallengeable government directives. The truth is, these Chinese companies, at the end of the day, don't owe their obligation to their customers or their shareholders, but they owe it to the PRC Government. In the context of social media platforms used by nearly half of Americans, it is not hard to imagine how a platform that facilitates so much commerce, political discourse, and social debate could be covertly manipulated to serve the goals of an authoritarian regime, one with a long track record of censorship, transnational oppression, and promotion of disinformation. In recent weeks, we have seen direct lobbying by the Chinese Government, indicating, perhaps, more than anything we will say on the floor here, how dearly Xi Jinping is invested in this product--a product, by the way, that is not even allowed to operate in the Chinese domestic market, itself. Story after story, over the last 18 months, have exposed the extent to which TikTok had grossly misrepresented its data security and corporate governance practice, as well as its relationship with its parent company. Countless stories have refuted the claims made by TikTok executives and lobbyists that it operates independently from its controlling company ByteDance.…”