Unhappy With TikTok's Traffic Grab, Zuckerberg Takes out His Anger on China

At noon on Wednesday local time in the United States, the CEOs of the four major American technology giants, Amazon, Google, Facebook and Apple, attended the U.S. Congressional Antitrust Hearing. Faced with questioning, Facebook CEO Zuckerberg tried to direct the spearhead to the Chinese government and TikTok. In response, TikTok immediately issued a statement and fought back unceremoniously.

On the afternoon of July 29th local time in the United States, the CEOs of four technology giants, Facebook, Amazon, Apple and Google, attended a hearing of the U.S. House of Representatives Antitrust Subcommittee.

In the opening statement of the hearing, it was mentioned that these four companies were chosen because they are representative of American information technology companies:

Amazon - the largest e-commerce platform; Apple - the largest mobile device manufacturer;

Facebook - the largest social network; Google - the largest search engine.

Under questioning by members of Congress, Zuckerberg, Bezos, Cook and Pichai answered a series of questions on antitrust, privacy protection and platform bias.

When a House representative asked a sensitive question:Do you believe that China has "stolen technology" from American technology companies?

Zuckerberg expressed a completely different view from the other three CEOs:

Question: Do you believe that the Chinese government "steals technology" from American technology companies?

The other three CEOs said no, only Zuckerberg said "the evidence is clear".

The specific answers are as follows:

Cook:According to the information I have, there has been no case of technology theft by China at Apple.

Bezos:I have only seen such reports in the news, but I am not aware of such incidents, but there are many imitations of American brands sold in the Chinese market.

Splits Brother:As far as I know, there has been no such incident at Google. He later corrected himself by saying that there was a cyber attack in 2009 that was confirmed to be launched by Chinese hackers.

Zuckerberg responded to this question by saying:There is strong evidence that the Chinese government steals technology from American technology companies.

In the face of questioning, TikTok was thrown dirty water

When Zuckerberg was questioned,Trying to shift the focus to TikTok.

At the meeting, he tried hard to describe the company as an "American success story."But it is now "threatened" by Chinese social media apps, especially TikTok in the United States.

He then stressed that Facebook is crucial to winning the "cyber arms race" with China and that hindering American technological innovation would only "help" China.

TikTok certainly couldn't sit still for such a provocation and immediately issued a statement.Accusing Facebook of "a malicious attack disguised as patriotism, trying to make us disappear in the United States."

On July 29, TikTok’s new CEO Kevin Mayer published a post titled Fair competition and transparency benefits us allpublic statements.

The statement said that after Facebook's copycat product Lasso failed (the product was launched by Facebook in late 2018 to compete with TikTok),Another product imitating (xi) TikTok, Reels (tied with Instagram), has been launched.

Kevin Mayer believes that everyone should focus on fair and open competition and serving consumers, rather than being like Facebook. A vicious attack "disguised as patriotism". 

The statement also announced thatThe company will disclose the code that drives its content moderation algorithms to regulators so that experts can observe their execution in real time.In addition, the statement accused Facebook of malicious attacks.

Facing Facebook's provocation, TikTok issued a statement to fight back

The tremendous pressure TikTok is under recently is not just from Facebook.

At the end of June, TikTok, the overseas version of Douyin, was banned in India. Then, on July 6, US Secretary of State Pompeo said in an interview with Fox News that he would take TikTok, the overseas version of Douyin, seriously and conduct an investigation into it.

Regarding the possible reasons for including TikTok in the ban list, Pompeo said at a press conference:It is to protect the privacy of American citizens and the national security of the United States.

On July 22, local time, at a hearing in the United States, the "Ban on the Use of TikTok on Government Devices Act" was passed, which means that government employees and government devices are prohibited from downloading TikTok.

In a difficult situation, TikTok is trying to survive. Kevin Mayer said in a statement,The algorithms will be made public for real-time review by experts.

The following is a translation of part of the above statement:

We have come under increased scrutiny due to our Chinese heritage, and we accept this and hope to reassure our users with more transparent policies and accountability.

We believe that the industry as a whole should hold itself to a higher standard.All companies should disclose their algorithms, moderation policies and data flows to regulators.But we won't wait until regulations are introduced. TikTok will take the first step and set up a transparency and accountability center to review code and data.The entire community can observe our review policies in real time and verify the specific code of our algorithms.

This is an industry first, but we encourage other companies to do the same.

References:

-https://www.businessinsider.com/tiktok-ceo-kevin-mayer-slams-facebook-patriotism-china-copycat-reels-2020-7

-https://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/big-tech-ceos-divided-on-china-technology-theft

-TikTok full statement: https://newsroom.tiktok.com/en-us/fair-competition-and-transparency-benefits-us-all

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