'It'd be a shame to lose it': TikTok creator comes out in defense of the app

TikTok creators Ashley Renne Nsonwu and Hannah Williams (CNN)

TikTok creator Hannah Williams told CNN that she built her business through the app, and now makes some $200,000 a year. A ban would mean a hit to her business, she said.

Williams also stressed how an entire generation of American young people now “live on TikTok,” and don’t want to see it go.

“A lot of our younger community, you know, under 30, they live on TikTok. TikTok is their Google, it's their Yelp," she said. “And I think that it's a really great source for information that a lot of people turn to, and it's where we build a lot of community and gathering.”

“It'd be a shame to lose it,” Williams said.

Fellow TikTok creator Ashley Renne Nsonwu added that TikTok has also helped people from diverse backgrounds find community. “For people like me, you know, Black and brown people of color, it would be very detrimental to us,” she said of a TikTok ban. “It's very upsetting for a lot of us, because we rely on these spaces to talk about issues that really matter to us. And now we're talking about banning that.”

Kara Swisher, host of the "On with Kara Swisher" podcast (CNN)

Longtime tech journalist Kara Swisher, host of the "On with Kara Swisher" podcast, kicked off the primetime special by telling CNN that a TikTok ban would be a boon for US tech giants, such as Meta’s Facebook and Instagram.

“The fact of the matter is this will help Facebook Reels,” she said of a possible ban, referring to a copycat feature Meta introduced to complete with TikTok. “It will help a lot of other social media sites, primarily Facebook.”

“And that's one of the issues here again, these legislators should be thinking more broadly across the entire social media spectrum,” Swisher said. She added that some of the issues lawmakers brought up around TikTok, especially surrounding potential harms for teens, "are happening everywhere."

She continued: "And it's happening even among adults, I mean, Twitter is no Nirvana garden party, it's a very toxic place -- and so this is a bigger issue that they should be dealing with, but in this case, they're going to aim at TikTok because of the Chinese government."

CNN's primetime special, "Is Time Up for TikTok," kicks off at 9 p.m. ET. The special will look at the national security concerns for TikTok as well as the popular app's impacts on younger users — and the efforts of lawmakers and schools to address these issues.

Pay TV subscribers can stream the special live via CNN.com and CNN OTT, and mobile apps under “TV Channels,” or CNNgo where available.

TikTok Chief Executive Shou Zi Chew testified before a House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing entitled "TikTok: How Congress can Safeguard American Data Privacy and Protect Children from Online Harms," as lawmakers scrutinized the Chinese-owned video-sharing app, on Capitol Hill today. (Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters)

After more than five hours of testimony, we are largely back where we were when the hearing started. US lawmakers remain convinced that TikTok is an urgent threat to national security; TikTok made no new major commitments beyond what it has already promised to do to safeguard user data; and a nationwide ban still seems very much a live possibility.

Few new facts were uncovered in the hearing, but lawmakers took every opportunity to accuse TikTok of actively spying on US users; of failing to moderate content in the way that Douyin, TikTok's Chinese sister app, does under China's strict internet censorship regime; and of effectively being an arm of the Chinese government.

TiKTok CEO Shou Chew sought to provide nuanced answers and at times attempted to correct lawmakers on misperceptions about the company and its parent — but those responses were often interpreted as bad-faith evasiveness.

It was, in other words, a textbook congressional grilling of a technology CEO.

In a statement after the hearing, TikTok said its CEO "came prepared to answer questions from Congress, but, unfortunately, the day was dominated by political grandstanding that failed to acknowledge the real solutions already underway."

If there was any progress made on Thursday, it was reflected in the breadth of support lawmakers showed for a comprehensive, bipartisan privacy proposal that would create the nation's first-ever federal privacy right — a years-long dream of privacy advocates.

Such a law would govern all businesses' handling of American data in the United States, covering not just TikTok but also other social media companies, data brokers and more. A comprehensive federal privacy law, many members of the panel said, is the only way to ensure the long-term safety of Americans' personal information.

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Gen Z is the first generation to truly grow up online and now they’re joining the fight to log off. In February, college student and founder of the Log Off Movement, Emma Lembke, testified in front of a Senate committee about the impact that social media companies have on youth mental health.

Lembke is one of many activists, including parents and politicians from both sides of the aisle, calling for increased government regulation of social media companies. Dr. Sanjay Gupta talks with CNN Technology Reporter Brian Fung about a Supreme Court case that could open those companies to more lawsuits. Plus, we dive into what we actually know about the privacy concerns surrounding TikTok and if a nationwide ban is possible.

Click here to listen to this episode of Chasing Life

Also, Jen Easterly, the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, talks to David Axelrod about the cyber threats from Russia and China, the potential downsides of A.I. and TikTok, and why cybersecurity needs to be a collaborative effort.

Click here to listen to this episode of the Axe Files

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Two polls released this week find more public support than opposition for a US government ban on the app — although younger Americans and frequent TikTok users are against such a ban.

Among Americans who've heard of TikTok, 61% favor the US government banning the app, with 39% opposed, according to a CBS News/YouGov poll released Thursday. The vast majority of the public, more than 9 in 10, say they've heard or read at least something about the app.

Views vary sharply by age. Among those who've heard of TikTok, these are the percentages of people who say they are in favor of banning the app:

There's less of a partisan divide, with 70% of Republicans, 60% of Democrats and 58% of independents who've heard of TikTok all favoring a ban.

Among Americans who've heard about TikTok, 56% consider its ties to China a national security risk, with 22% saying that TikTok’s parent company being based in China does not present such a risk and the remainder unsure.

In a Washington Post poll also released this week, a majority also favored banning TikTok in the US – 41% in support to 25% opposed, with about one-third (34%) not sure, although a 54% majority of daily TikTok users said they did not want to see the app banned.

A majority of Americans (71%) in the Washington Post poll said they were at least somewhat concerned that TikTok's parent company is based in China, with majorities also saying it was likely that TikTok is allowing the spread of false information (73%) and harming teens' mental health (72%).

But only about one-third, 34%, said they believed TikTok collected more personal data than other social media apps do, with more (43%) saying it collected about the same amount of data as other apps, and 21% not sure.

U.S. Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy at the U.S. Capitol building on March 10. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said Wednesday he supports legislation that would effectively ban TikTok in the United States, the clearest sign yet of the growing momentum on Capitol Hill to outlaw the popular social media app. 

“I don't know that we have to give the president the authority. I think maybe we may be able to do it ourselves and I'll let it work in the House,” he told CNN’s Manu Raju. 

Asked if he would support a congressional ban on the app, McCarthy responded; “Yes.”

“I think you see a bipartisan concern here with what's happening on TikTok especially what's happening to the data for Americans … there's many different ramifications here so I think they could come together. I'd let the committees do their work and see if the product comes out when it gets done,” McCarthy said of potential legislation, and did not give any timeline. 

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TikTok CEO Shou Chew addressed reports that TikTok uses keylogging, a method by which an app or program monitors the keyboard entries of users.

"We do not engage in keystroke logging to monitor what users say," Chew said. "It's to identify bots. It's for security purposes, and this is a standard industry practice."

Privacy experts have confirmed that keylogging is indeed widespread among websites and that the technique is not inherently malicious, but can potentially lead to user data being collected when users type in sensitive personal information into websites they visit.

The fact that keylogging is a common industry practice does not necessarily excuse TikTok, but it highlights privacy advocates' broad concerns about the use of keylogging more generally and underscores calls for stronger privacy laws for all companies.