Though Shou Zi Chew has held the title of TikTok’s CEO for roughly two years now, the c-suite exec found himself shoehorned into a much less prestigious role this week – serving as a prob-ono tech support agent to the Luddite boomers comprising congress.


While testifying as a part of the Congressional hearing into the video-sharing platform, Chew followed in the grand tradition of Twitter’s Jack Dorsey and Meta exec/notable Sweet Baby Rays enthusiast Mark Zuckerberg, fielding some of the most mind-numbing inquiries from our tech-illiterate lawmakers, including the basic functions of WiFi.


"Mr, Chew, does TikTok access the home wifi network?" asked North Carolina Rep. Richard Hudson about an hour into questioning.



Despite offering a preliminary answer –"Only if the user turns on the wifi,” Chew replied – and asking for clarification, Hudson continued barreling through his arguably nonsensical inquiry.


"So if I have the TikTok app on my phone and my phone is on my home wifi network, does TikTok access that network?" he elaborated. "It would have to — to access the network to get connections to the internet if that's the question," Chew replied, evidently confused.



Hudson – who was also evidently confused by the exec’s reply – continued, now putting the sheer force of wifi into question. "Is it possible, then, that it could access other devices on that home WiFi network?" he asked.



"Congressman, we do not do anything that is beyond any industry norms,” Chew retorted adding that he believed” “the answer to your question is no.” “It could be technical. Let me get back to you.”


As they often are with bumbling senators, Twitter and TikTok were naturally horrified by the oblivious exchange.


“If  load my weapon, DOES IT SHOOT BULLETS?” asked one user beneath NowThis’s clip of the interaction, before questioning “If I plugged a charger cable in my phone, does my phone USE THE Electricity?” and” if I leave my phone at home while I'm at work, is TikTok going to sleep with my wife?”



“This panel doesn’t understand the basics of #WiFi or probably the Internet itself. Is this some kind of bad performance art?” wrote a TikTok user asked.


Let’s hope it's the latter … as we’re gonna need some entertainment once TikTok is banned.