His boss, Shou Chew, faced the rolling fire of attacks from a powerful parliamentary committee on Thursday, without really having the opportunity to respond.

The elected officials, exceptionally united on the right and on the left, accuse TikTok, a subsidiary of the Chinese ByteDance, of serving as a tool for Beijing to spy on and manipulate Americans.

A hearing that ended in "disaster" for the platform, says Dan Yves, Webdush Securities, who expects a rise in "calls from lawmakers and the White House to ban TikTok in the United States if ByteDance does not separate from the company".

Unless ByteDance finds an American buyer in "three to six months", it estimates that "TikTok will probably be banned by the end of the year".

White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre spoke Thursday night of "ongoing negotiations with ByteDance" and said the government "strongly supports" the RESTRICT Act, one of the bills to ban TikTok.

The bill, debated by senators this month, gives the Commerce Department new powers to ban technologies that threaten national security.

'Miscalculation'

On Friday morning, the conservative New York Post made its front page, titled "The record of TikTok", with the photo of the parents of a dead teenager, present at Thursday's hearing.

They recently filed a complaint against the platform, accusing it of showing thousands of unsolicited videos about suicide to their son.

"Your company has destroyed their lives," said Rep. Gus Bilirakis, pointing to the family.

TikTok boss Shou Zi Chew makes a statement to the press ahead of his hearing by the US Congress, March 23, 2023 in Washington © OLIVIER DOULIERY / AFP

User data privacy, content moderation led by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), misinformation, addiction, dangerous challenges, mental and physical health of children and adolescents... The list of grievances of elected officials is long.

The platform tried to anticipate it with a campaign, before the hearing, highlighting its popularity in the United States, a "miscalculation", according to analyst Jasmine Enberg of Insider Intelligence, which "strengthened the argument" of parliamentarians.

The 150 million users in the United States "are all Americans on whom the CCP can collect sensitive information, to, ultimately, control what they see, hear and believe," said Cathy McMorris Rodgers, the committee's chairwoman.

TikTok has also called on influencers to defend the service that made them famous.

"Highlighting the economic impact of TikTok is also a tricky strategy, given that its growth has come partly at the expense of US companies like Meta. Instagram and YouTube would be the first beneficiaries" of a ban in the United States.

Political calculation

The United States has already tried to Americanize or ban TikTok: former President Donald Trump, exasperated in particular by the content of users ridiculing him, was there in the name of national security, in vain.

The current high tensions with China are bringing Republicans and Democrats together, and the voice seems free.

But civil liberties NGOs, some elected officials and many experts argue that TikTok poses essentially the same problems as Facebook, Twitter and others.

"From a security point of view, we could certainly come up with a solution that minimizes perceived risks," Michael Daniel, director of the Cyber Threat Alliance, a cybersecurity NGO, told AFP.

"But would that be satisfactory for politicians? That's another question."

A ban would mean that "the United States, a democracy, is taking action that restricts the ability of young voters (TikTok users) to express themselves and earn a living," said Sarah Kreps, a law professor and director of the Tech Policy Institute.

"Given the costs of such a decision, and its limited benefits," she continues, "lawmakers should first consider real data protection laws, and risk control strategies, such as +Project Texas+," the compromise proposed by TikTok to protect U.S. data.

"We are committed to providing a safe and inclusive platform," Vanessa Pappas, TikTok's chief operating officer, tweeted Thursday. "It's a shame that today's conversation seemed to emanate from xenophobia."

© 2023 AFP