TikTok ban: all the news on attempts to ban the video platform

“It’s our understanding that they’re looking at the eyes.”

One of the long-running tropes of these hearings is “how much does anyone in the room, including the CEOs and the members of Congress, actually understand the tech at hand?”

To that end, I submit TikTok’s Shou Chew explaining that TikTok doesn’t collect body, face, or voice data to identify users, except when it needs to know where your eyes are for sunglasses filters and such. To which Georgia representative Buddy Carter responded: “Why do you need to see where the eyes are? To see if they’re dilated?”

When Chew explained TikTok’s age-gating process, Carter interjected: “That’s creepy. Tell me more about that.” Which is a good summation of the hearing so far, really.