has been trying to distance itself from its chinese origins saying 60 of bytedance is owned by global institutional investors such as carlyle groupownership is not at the core of addressing these concerns chew saidbut for many others it is the biden administration has reportedly demanded tiktoks chinese owners sell their stakes in the company to avoid a nationwide ban china has said it would oppose those attempts meanwhile secretary of state anthony blinken said at a separate committee hearing thursday that he believes tiktok is a security threat and should be ended one way or anotherwhite house press secretary karine jeanpierre said everyone was watching thursdays tiktok hearing at the white house but she declined to comment on specific actions the administration could take to address its tiktok concernsin one of the most dramatic moments of the hearing republican rep kat cammack played a tiktok video showing a shooting gun with a caption that included the house committee with the exact date before it was formally announcedyou expect us to believe that you are capable of maintaining the data security privacy and security of 150 million americans where you cant even protect the people in this room cammack saidtiktok said the company on thursday removed the video and banned the account that posted itconcerns about what kind of content americans encounter online or how their data is collected by technology companies isnt new congress has been wanting to curtail the amount of data tech companies collect on consumers through a national privacy law but those efforts have failedat a news conference on wednesday rep jamaal bowman a new york democrat and one of the few allies tiktok seemingly has on the hill said lawmakers concerned about protecting users shouldnt target tiktok but must instead focus on a national law that would protect user data across all social media platforms chew also noted the failure of us social media companies to address the very concerns for which tiktok was being criticizedamerican social companies dont have a good track record with data privacy and user security he said look at facebook and cambridge analytica just one examplecommittee members also showed a host of tiktok videos that encouraged users to harm themselves and commit suicide many questioned why the platforms chinese counterpart douyin does not carry the same potentially dangerous content as the american productchew responded that it depends on the laws of the country where the app is operating he said the company has about 40000 moderators that track harmful content and an algorithm that flags materialwealth management firm wedbush described the hearing as a disaster for tiktok that made a ban more likely if it doesnt separate from its chinese parent emile el nems an analyst at moodys investors service said a ban would benefit tiktok rivals youtube instagram and snap likely resulting in higher revenue share of the total advertising walletto avoid a ban tiktok has been trying to sell officials on a 15 billion plan project texas which