Washington: An executive of the social media app TikTok, owned by Beijing-based ByteDance, denied during a US congressional hearing on Tuesday that it had briefed the Chinese government and said it had taken steps to protect US data. Senator Marsha Blackburn, the top Republican on the Senate Commerce Committee subcommittee, said she is concerned about TikTok’s collection of data, including audio and a user’s location, and its ability to gain access to Chinese government information. Blackburn pressed TikTok’s head of public policy for the US, Michael Beckerman, over whether the company could resist giving data to China’s government if the...