This week, lawmakers questioned TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew for around five hours on Thursday about the Chinese government’s ties to the social media platform TikTok. According to a press release from TikTok, about 150 million Americans use the platform.
“That’s almost half the U.S. coming to TikTok to connect,” Chew said in a video this week.
In recent years, several lawmakers have sounded the alarm on the security risk that TikTok poses to the United States. A new poll asked younger voters their thoughts on the platform’s ties to the Chinese government and if they’d be disappointed if the federal government banned it.
Most voters born in Generation Z said in a new poll conducted by SocialSphere that they oppose a federal ban on the platform TikTok. The same group of voters also said they are concerned about the Chinese government’s influence on the platform.
The poll found that 51 percent of Gen Z voters ages 18 to 26 are concerned about the influence the CCP has over the video-sharing platform. Sixty-four percent of Millennial voters ages 27 to 42 felt the same way. But, only 34 percent of Gen Z voters said they’d support a federal ban on the app. Forty-nine percent of Millennial voters said they’d support such a ban.
In the survey, 71 percent of Gen Z voters said they have an active TikTok account. Forty-three percent of Millennials in the survey said they had an active TikTok account. Among Gen Z voters, TikTok came in second place as the most popular social media platform, as 76 percent of this demographic said they have an active Instagram account. Among millennials, Facebook was the most popular social media platform, with 79 percent saying that they have an active account.
Overall, 34 percent of respondents said they would feel disappointed if TikTok weren’t around. This included 47 percent of Gen Z voters and 30 percent of Millennials. A minority, 23 percent of respondents, said they would look for a work-around to use the app if a ban were to happen.
This week, The Hill reported that a former aide to President Joe Biden was hired by TikTok as the platform began an “all-out push to avert a U.S. ban.”
“TikTok has repeatedly chosen the path for more control, more surveillance and more manipulation,” House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA.) said to Chew at the hearing on Thursday. “Your platform should be banned.”