TikTok creators are voicing their opposition to the U.S. government’s regulatory plans. As the Senate considers a proposal that would force ByteDance to divest its popular video app, 17 TikTokers have signed an open letter that urges President Biden to reconsider.
The open letter includes five talking points that underscore TikTok’s contributions to the creator economy. The signees pushed back on arguments made by TikTok’s opponents by celebrating their open expression on the app and the financial support they’ve received from it. They also warned the president not to antagonize TikTok’s Gen Z audience during an election year; while older consumers may see the app as a security risk, its younger users “do not feel endangered” and do not believe Congressional distrust is warranted.
The signees cited Project Texas as evidence that TikTok is taking security concerns seriously, and they stressed that they would continue to support the app. “Our advocacy for TikTok is not a threat but a declaration of our commitment to protecting a platform that is integral to our livelihoods and sources of joy,” the letter reads. “We will continue to mobilize and utilize our platforms to defend TikTok, even though it comes at the opportunity cost of collaborating on other important initiatives like voter turnout.”
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Nadya Okamoto (pictured above), a creator, author, and entrepreneur with more than four million followers on TikTok, is the leader of the Dear President Biden effort. Her co-signees include couple creators Alex and Jessica, dancer Jennifer Mika, and oddball Morgan Presley.
The members of Okamoto’s movement are unconcerned about TikTok’s security issues and reassured by Project Texas, but recent headlines are undermining those talking points. A report from Fortune cited 11 former TikTok employees, some of whom worked at the company as recently as last year. The consensus among those ex-staffers is that the separation between TikTok’s U.S. operations and ByteDance’s Beijing headquarters was “largely cosmetic.”
Evan Turner, one of the ex-employees interviewed by Fortune, said that links between TikTok and China persisted even after the app publicly committed to cleaning up its image. “I literally worked on a project that gave U.S. data to China,” Turner said. “They were completely complicit in that. There were Americans that were working in upper management that were completely complicit in this.”
In a statement provided to Fortune, TikTok described the allegations as “anonymous lies and distortions” spread by “disgruntled ex-employees.” That denial might be a tough pill for Congress to swallow. TikTok still has its community members in its corner, but for many onlookers, the app’s alleged security breaches are too big to ignore.
