TikTok tries to sell 'Project Texas' as it fights for survival in the U.S.

TikTok is going on the offensive in Washington, D.C., in a stepped-up effort to counter calls to ban the app in the U.S. over its Chinese ownership.

TikTok is going on the offensive in Washington, D.C., in a stepped-up effort to counter calls to ban the app in the U.S. over its Chinese ownership. 

Senior executives at the popular video app and their lobbyists have been briefing members of Congress, academic researchers, think tank writers and others about a $1.5 billion effort that they call Project Texas, laying out details of how TikTok believes it can address the concerns of people who see it as a security threat, according to people who said they had been briefed and media reports about the lobbying. 

Some of the details appeared Thursday on the security blog Lawfare, where two people provided a rundown of what they said they heard at one TikTok briefing last week. 

Matt Perault, one of the co-authors of the blog post and the director of the Center on Technology Policy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said that much of the political debate around TikTok has been rooted in guesswork, and that the briefing was a chance to hear the company put forward specifics. 

“The debate should be grounded in the realities of the planned operations rather than in speculation about what those plans may be,” Perault said in a phone interview. 

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/security/tiktok-tries-sell-project-texas-fights-survival-us-rcna67697

---