TikTok deploys swarm of influencers to US Capitol ahead of expected CEO grilling

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The Chinese-owned video-sharing app TikTok has deployed a swarm of influencers to the U.S. Capitol as lawmakers are expected to grill the company's CEO in a Thursday hearing.

The company lobbied many of its popular content creators to head to Capitol Hill in an attempt to ward off a congressional ban. The creators argued that TikTok is far more than a social media app, though few addressed lawmakers' concerns about data privacy and China.

"TikTok is not a children’s dancing app," Aidan Kohn-Murphy, a college freshman with close to 300,000 TikTok followers and founder of the advocacy group Gen-Z for Change, told The Wall Street Journal. "It is one of the most powerful tools that young people have to engage each other and to get civically involved."

Kohn-Murphy and a group of more than 20 other popular TikTok influencers held a press conference and filmed themselves around the U.S. Capitol complex throughout Wednesday.

TikTok paid for the influencers' travel and lodging expenses, according to WSJ.

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Rep. Jamaal Bowman is the only lawmaker on Capitol Hill to publicly express support for TikTok. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

TikTok CEO, Shou Zi Chew faces a grilling from congressional lawmakers on Thursday. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew will face a slew of skeptical lawmakers during Thursday's hearing before the House Energy and Commerce Committee, with both Republicans and Democrats largely agreed on the threat of TikTok.

Rep. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., has proven to be the sole member of Congress willing to speak out publicly in defense of TikTok. The representative joined the company's recruited influencers during their Wednesday press conference.

"Republicans ain't got no swag," Bowman said. "That's why they want to ban TikTok."

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U.S. lawmakers of both parties have stated that TikTok's ownership by the Chinese tech company ByteDance opens up its 150 million American users to data collection by the Chinese Communist Party. 

TikTok faces an ongoing security review by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. (CFIUS) – an interagency group that evaluates threats to U.S. national security posed by foreign investments or transactions. CFIUS has been looking into TikTok since 2019 and has reportedly threatened to ban TikTok unless ByteDance divests its stake in the platform’s U.S. operations, according to the WSJ.

TikTok enlisted an army of its influencers to descend on the U.S. Capitol this week. (Associated Press)

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Chew has argued that TikTok is not beholden to any one country, though executives in the past have admitted that Chinese officials had access to Americans' data even when U.S.-based TikTok officials did not.