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TikTok and its CEO are fighting to save the app in the US | CNN Business

Published

2 years ago

March 22, 2023

TikTok and its CEO are fighting to save the app in the US | CNN Business

As a rising variety of lawmakers increase nationwide safety considerations about TikTok’s ties to China, and a few consultants fear in regards to the app’s influence on younger individuals’s psychological well being, CNN is internet hosting a particular to dig into these points. Watch “CNN Primetime: Is time up for TikTok?” Thursday, March 23 at 9 p.m. ET.

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At a Harvard Enterprise Assessment convention earlier this month, the place executives, professors and artists appeared for talks on company management and emotional intelligence, Shou Chew tried to save lots of his firm.

In his speak, Chew, the CEO of TikTok, stated the social community wouldn’t present US consumer information to the Chinese language authorities and has by no means been requested to take action. Chew burdened the steps TikTok has taken to guard US consumer information. And 4 separate occasions, Chew instructed the viewers that the platform’s mission was to “encourage creativity and convey pleasure” to customers.

The Harvard occasion is only one of a number of media appearances Chew has made in current weeks amid mounting scrutiny of TikTok and of himself. Chew is ready to testify on Thursday for the primary time earlier than a Congressional committee about “TikTok’s shopper privateness and information safety practices, the platforms’ influence on youngsters, and its relationship with the Chinese language Communist Celebration,” in line with an announcement final week from the committee. In the meantime, federal officers are actually demanding the app’s Chinese language homeowners promote their stake within the social media platform, or danger dealing with a US ban of the app.

Chew, a Singaporean who has largely stayed out of the highlight since taking up TikTok in 2021, just lately sat for interviews with a number of US newspapers and this week confirmed up in a video on the company TikTok account to focus on the huge attain of the app, which he revealed now has greater than 150 million customers in the USA.

“That’s virtually half the US coming to TikTok to attach, to create, to share, to be taught, or simply to have some enjoyable,” stated Chew, carrying in a hoodie and t-shirt like some other American tech government within the clip. “This comes at a pivotal second for us. Some politicians have began speaking about banning TikTok, now this might take TikTok away from all 150 million of you.”

Chew’s heightened visibility seems to be half of a bigger messaging marketing campaign by TikTok to bolster its repute within the US and remind voters – and their representatives – how important the social community is to American tradition.

A press convention is deliberate for Wednesday with dozens of social media creators on the steps of the Capitol, a few of whom have been flown on the market by TikTok. The corporate is paying for a blitz of commercials for a Beltway viewers. And final week it put out a docuseries highlighting American small enterprise homeowners who depend on the platform for his or her livelihoods.

Behind the scenes, Chew has additionally met with members of Congress and TikTok just lately invited researchers and lecturers to its Washington, D.C., workplaces to be taught extra about how it’s working to deal with lawmakers considerations over its ties to China via its mother or father firm, ByteDance. Its mother or father firm has additionally ramped up federal lobbying, spending greater than $5 million final yr, in line with information tracked by OpenSecrets.

“It’s life or dying for TikTok, from their perspective,” stated Justin Sherman, the CEO of World Cyber Methods, D.C.-based analysis and advisory agency, who was among the many researchers TikTok invited to be briefed on “Mission Texas,” the corporate’s $1.5 billion initiative to deal with lawmakers’ safety considerations. “They’re throwing the whole lot they will on the drawback.”

In an announcement, TikTok spokesman Jamal Brown stated: “A U.S. ban on TikTok may have a direct influence on the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of People. Lawmakers in Washington debating TikTok ought to hear firsthand from individuals whose lives can be immediately affected by their selections.”

For a lot of the previous yr, TikTok has been rolling out new options and insurance policies to deal with privateness and safety considerations that the Chinese language authorities may acquire entry to US consumer information, in addition to broader fears that its app, like different social platforms, could be dangerous to some youthful customers.

TikTok just lately set a default one-hour each day display screen time restrict on each account for customers below 18 in one of the crucial aggressive strikes but by a social media firm to stop teenagers from endlessly scrolling. It rolled out a characteristic that aimed to supply extra data to customers about why its highly effective algorithm recommends sure movies. And the corporate pledged extra transparency to researchers.

Going through considerations about its mother or father firm’s ties to China, TikTok has additionally taken plenty of steps to extra clearly separate its US operations and consumer information from different elements of the group. That features transferring all its US consumer information to Oracle’s cloud platform, the place it says it hosts “100% of US consumer site visitors.”

The messaging marketing campaign has solely ramped up this week forward of the listening to. TikTok rolled out refreshed Group Tips for content material, which the corporate framed as being “based mostly on our dedication to uphold human rights and aligned with worldwide authorized frameworks.” And Chew as soon as once more burdened TikTok’s independence from China.

“I perceive that there are considerations stemming from the incorrect perception that TikTok’s company construction makes it beholden to the Chinese language authorities or that it shares details about U.S. customers with the Chinese language authorities,” Chew stated in ready remarks forward of his testimony earlier than Congress. “That is emphatically unfaithful.”

On the similar time, TikTok is now betting on a technique from American tech corporations who’ve confronted scrutiny for different causes, enjoying up the influence it has on small companies in the USA, together with with the CEO’s ready remarks and a mini docuseries it launched final week titled “TikTok Sparks Good.”

The collection spotlighted inspiring tales of American small enterprise homeowners and creators. The primary of the 60-second clips includes a Mississippi cleaning soap maker with a deep Southern accent who constructed her firm on the app, and the second options an educator who stop his job to give attention to sharing informational movies on TikTok aimed toward educating toddlers the way to learn.

“Due to TikTok, I’m reaching hundreds of thousands of households who wish to educate their toddlers the way to learn,” the educator says.

Dozens of TikTok creators who oppose a ban can even be holding a press convention on Capitol grounds on Wednesday night with Congressman Jamaal Bowman, a Democrat from New York. TikTok flew out a number of the creators, the corporate confirmed to CNN. (The Info was first to report the transfer.)

The record of anticipated attendees features a disabled Asian American creator utilizing her platform to fight ableism, a small enterprise proprietor from South Carolina who launched a greeting card firm by way of TikTok, and an Ohio-based chef who constructed her bakery enterprise by way of the app. A few of the creators have lots of of thousand and even hundreds of thousands of followers on TikTok.

Even with these efforts, Sherman expressed some skepticism about how persuasive the PR push will probably be, largely due to how divided Washington is true now.

“Not everybody needs a ban,” he stated. “For some lawmakers, it should matter that TikTok is taking all these steps to deal with safety considerations.”

However for others, it gained’t transfer the needle. “Some lawmakers, frankly, don’t care what advertisements TikTok is taking out, what pledges it’s making on its weblog about independence, information privateness … They see an unmitigable danger of Chinese language authorities entry to information and/or affect over content material, and so are going to push for a whole ban.”

Lindsay Gorman, a senior fellow for rising applied sciences on the German Marshall Fund’s Alliance for Securing Democracy and a former Biden administration adviser, stated that “by and huge, TikTok’s lobbying efforts thus far have been fairly ineffective.”

The issue, she stated, is two-fold. First, even when TikTok takes steps to bolster its safeguards right this moment, because it has been doing with Mission Texas, considerations stay that it’s at all times “one replace away from changing into a vulnerability.” And second, TikTok’s PR efforts in Washington gained’t undo earlier moments when the corporate “shot itself within the foot” by making what she stated had been “inaccurate statements” to Congress, “after which having revelations come out exhibiting that these had been inaccurate.”

After the preliminary, Trump-era requires a TikTok ban appeared to fade in Washington, BuzzFeed reported in 2021 that US consumer information was repeatedly accessed from China and that “the whole lot is seen in China.” The main points within the report had been seemingly at odds with remarks a TikTok government gave earlier than a Senate panel earlier that yr, claiming {that a} US-based safety group decides who can entry US consumer information from China. Following the report, TikTok as soon as once more grew to become a scorching button situation within the nation’s capital.

However at the same time as suspicion amongst US lawmakers grew, so did the app’s reputation within the nation.

“I do assume TikTok’s strongest argument to this point is drawing on its creator consumer base,” Gorman stated. However for some lawmakers with safety considerations, the most recent push “could also be too little too late.”

In his TikTok video on Tuesday, Chew appealed on to customers of the app. The CEO requested them to write down within the feedback part to share “what you need your elected representatives to find out about what you like about TikTok.”

The highest touch upon the clip, which has acquired upwards of fifty,000 likes, merely reads: “You realize one thing went improper when the boss has to indicate up 😂”

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A Peek Inside What Trump’s Presidential Library May Look Like

Published

9 minutes ago

December 18, 2024

Press Room

A Peek Inside What Trump’s Presidential Library May Look Like

Opinion

Trump loves to slap his name on any building but does he even need a presidential library when he keeps all his valuable documents in the bathroom?

Updated Dec. 18 2024 3:00PM EST / Published Dec. 18 2024 2:48PM EST

A photo illustration of President Donald Trump. — Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/Getty

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2024 Was the Most Intense Year for Tornadoes in a Decade

Published

6 hours ago

December 18, 2024

Press Room

2024 Was the Most Intense Year for Tornadoes in a Decade

In late April, a slow-moving storm over Texas and Oklahoma spawned an outbreak of 39 tornadoes. That event was just a fraction of the more than 400 tornadoes reported that month, the highest monthly count in 10 years. And the storms kept coming.

Through November, there were more than 1,700 tornadoes reported nationwide, preliminary data shows. At least 53 people had been killed across 17 states.

Monthly accumulated tornadoes

Not only were there more tornadoes reported, but 2024 is also on track to be one of the costliest years ever in terms of damage caused by severe storms, according to the National Center for Environmental Information. Severe weather and four tornado outbreaks from April to May in the central and southern United States alone cost $14 billion.

We will not know the final count of this year’s tornadoes until next year — the data through November does not yet include tornadoes like the rare one that touched down in Santa Cruz., Calif., on Saturday. That’s because confirming and categorizing a tornado takes time. After each reported event, researchers investigate the damage to classify the tornado strength based on 28 indicators such as the characteristics of the affected buildings and trees. Researchers rate the tornadoes using the Enhanced Fujita Scale (EF) from 0 to 5.

But 2024 could end with not only the most tornadoes in the last decade, but one of the highest counts since data collection began in 1950. Researchers suggest that the increase may be linked to climate change, although tornadoes are influenced by many factors, so different patterns cannot be attributed to a single cause.

The year’s worst storms

In May, a mobile radar vehicle operated by researchers from the University of Illinois measured winds ranging 309 to 318 miles per hour in a subvortex of a tornado in the outskirts of Greenfield, Iowa. The event, an EF4, was among the strongest ever recorded.

NASA tracked the line of destruction of the tornado over 44 miles.

Image by Vexcel Graysky, May 28, 2024.

NOAA estimated the damage caused by the Greenfield tornado to be about $31 million. While most tornadoes this year were not as deadly or destructive, there were at least three more EF4 storms, described by NOAA as devastating events with winds ranging from 166 to 200 miles per hour. These violent tornadoes caused severe damage in Elkhorn-Blair, Neb., and in Love and Osage Counties in Oklahoma.

Here are the footprints of 1,644 buildings in the United States that were destroyed or severely damaged by tornadoes this year, according to data from FEMA and Vexcel, a private company that uses aerial imagery to analyze natural disasters.

While losses from tornadoes occur on a regular basis every year, extreme events such as hurricanes can also produce tornadoes with great destructive capacity. In October, more than 40 tornadoes were reported in Florida during Hurricane Milton, three of them category EF3. According to the The Southeast Regional Climate Center, EF3 tornadoes spawned by hurricanes had not occurred in Florida since 1972.

A vulnerable region

Tornado detection systems have improved, especially since the 1990s, allowing scientists to count tornadoes that might have gone undetected in previous years, said John Allen, a climate scientist focused on historic climatology and analysis of risk at Michigan State University. That plays a role in the historical trend showing more tornadoes in recent decades.

Change in tornado activity

Confirmed tornadoes in each county from 2002-22 compared with 1981-2001

While this year’s worst storms were concentrated in the Midwest, many counties across the South have seen an increase in tornado activity in the past 20 years, compared with the prior two decades. These same counties’ demographic conditions, including low incomes and large mobile home populations, make them especially vulnerable to major disasters.

“It only takes an EF1 to do significant damage to a home, an EF2 would throw it all over the place,” Dr. Allen said.

Prof. Tyler Fricker, who researches tornadoes at the University of Louisiana, Monroe, said we will inevitably see more losses in the region.

“When you combine more intense tornadoes on average with more vulnerable people on average, you get these high levels of impact — casualties or property loss,” Dr. Fricker said.

“If you have enough money, you can protect yourself,” he added. “You can build out safe rooms. You can do things. That’s not the case for the average person in the Mid-South and Southeast.”

The C.D.C. identifies communities in need of support before, during and after natural disasters through a measure called social vulnerability, which is based on indicators such as poverty, overcrowding and unemployment. Most counties in Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi are both at high risk by this measure and have experienced an increase in tornadoes in the last 20 years, relative to the 1980s and 1990s.

County risk vs. change in tornado activity

In the states with the most tornadoes this year, most counties have better prepared infrastructure for these kinds of events.

Source: C.D.C. and NOAA

Note: Change in tornado activity compares tornado counts from 2002-22 with 1981-2001.

Stephen M. Strader of Villanova University, who has published an analysis of the social vulnerabilities in the Mid-South region and their relationship to environmental disasters, said the most vulnerable populations may face a tough year ahead. While two major hurricanes had the biggest impact on the region this year, La Niña will influence weather patterns in 2025 in ways that could cause more tornadoes specifically in the vulnerable areas in the South.

Although not completely definitive, NOAA studies suggest that EF2 tornadoes, which are strong enough to blow away roofs, are more likely to occur in the southeastern United States in La Niña years.

“Unfortunately, a La Niña favors bigger outbreaks in the southeast U.S.,” Dr. Strader said. “So this time next year we might be telling a different story.”

Sources and methodology

Damage costs estimates of tornado-involved storms as reported by NOAA as of Nov. 22.

Building footprints and aerial imagery are provided by Vexcel.

The first map shows preliminary tornado reports from January through October 2024, the latest available data from NOAA.

Historical tornado records range from 1950 to 2023 and include all EF category tornadoes as reported by NOAA. The historical activity change map counts tornadoes in each county from 1981 to 2001, and that number is subtracted from the total number of tornadoes recorded in each county from 2002 to 2022 to get the change in the most recent 20 years compared to the previous 20.

The Social Vulnerability index is based on 15 variables from the U.S. Census and is available from the C.D.C..

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Porsche-Piëch family pushes for Volkswagen plant closures

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7 hours ago

December 18, 2024

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Porsche-Piëch family pushes for Volkswagen plant closures

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The billionaire Porsche-Piëch family, Volkswagen’s majority owner, has taken a hardline stance in backing the company’s plans to close several German factories, as the threat of diminished dividends looms.

Lack of progress on the restructuring, initially announced in September, has become a growing concern for the Porsche-Piëch family, which has reversed its traditional stance of avoiding confrontation with VW’s powerful works council.

According to one person briefed on discussions at recent supervisory board meetings, the family has “made clear that it is necessary to rightsize the business in order to achieve long-term competitiveness”.

VW has argued for the closure of plants in Germany as its European sales have fallen sharply. However, the company’s works council, which controls half the seats on the company’s supervisory board, has promised workers that not a single German plant will be closed.

Another person with knowledge of the discussions said it was “hardly surprising” that the Porsche-Piëch family had different priorities than some other supervisory board members, especially the works council and its ally, the state of Lower Saxony, which holds 20 per cent of VW’s voting rights.

Worker representatives have argued that while cost cuts might support profit margins in the short term, they will do little to address sliding sales in both Europe and China, the company’s most profitable market.

Executives at Europe’s largest carmaker have spent weeks locked in tense negotiations with representatives of German workers, who have already downed tools twice in the past month amid fierce disagreement over planned cost cuts.

VW’s management and unions are eager to wrap up formal wage negotiations before Christmas. After 36 hours of continuous debate, the fifth round of talks broke off briefly on Wednesday morning with both sides agreeing to resume negotiations later in the day.

At VW’s supervisory board meetings in the run-up to the negotiations, discussions have been tense. The family’s de facto head, Wolfgang Porsche, last month rejected a compromise put on the table by the works council and union, making clear that anything other than “substantial action on cost efficiency [will be a] solution”, added one person briefed on the talks.

Porsche SE has already taken a hit from the crisis at VW. Last week, it warned that the uncertainty at the carmaker and the absence of financial planning data could force it to write down its stake in VW by up to €20bn, or nearly 40 per cent.

The family also faces the risk of falling VW dividends, which last year stood at €1.4bn, at a time when Porsche SE is saddled with €5.1bn in debt. The holding company borrowed heavily in 2022 to buy a 25 per cent voting stake in sports car maker Porsche AG — allowing the family to regain direct control over the company founded by its forebears.

“The plan was to finance the interest payments and to deleverage with the dividends from Porsche and VW,” said Stifel analyst Daniel Schwarz. “That’s clearly at risk now,” he added, explaining that the family’s wealthiest members “have most of their wealth invested in this one company”.

But the family’s battle with the carmaker’s workers carries other risks.

With Berlin gearing up for snap elections early next year, the hardline plan to cut tens of thousands of jobs at VW has met significant political blowback. A growing group of politicians — including Chancellor Olaf Scholz — have spoken out against factory closures.

“Some politicians have argued that VW should not pay a dividend at all and the union said that VW should consider a lower payout ratio,” Schwarz said.

The upcoming elections will also make it less likely that the state of Lower Saxony, which owns 20 per cent of VW voting rights and tends to back employment, would turn against the works council on the plant closures.