Neutralize

TikTok’s executives had for years hoped the company’s backroom negotiations with national security officials — and its viral-dance-filled self-promotion as the “last sunny corner of the internet” — would neutralizesuspicions in Washington over the app’s China-based ownership.

But with criticism heating up, Shou Zi Chew has launched a room-to-room offensive on Capitol Hill, meeting with federal and state lawmakers, journalists and think tanks in an effort to persuade critics that concerns about data privacy and censorship can be resolved without the nuclear option of a nationwide ban.
—The Washington Post