Ahead of TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew’s much-anticipated testimony within the United States House of Representatives right now, the embattled tech agency performed a full-court press on Capitol Hill. This included paying to deliver TikTok influencers face-to-face with their house state lawmakers, staffers, and journalists, in addition to sharing their journey with their collective viewers of some 60 million followers. 

TikTok coated journey, accommodations, meals, and shuttle rides to and from the Capitol for dozens of influencers, in response to the creators and the corporate itself. Each social media star was additionally invited to deliver a plus one—whether or not they flew in from Oklahoma, hopped the Acela from New York, or drove in from their suburban Washington house. TikTok spokesperson Jamal Brown confirms that “TikTok covered travel expenses for all creators and a guest.”

“Any barriers to getting here they helped cover,” says Tiffany Yu, a Los Angeles-based influencer and incapacity advocate tapped to talk yesterday at a extremely orchestrated press convention below the Capitol’s majestic dome.

While some influencers report paying their very own airfare to Washington, everybody we talked to took the free resort. It’s unclear exactly what people had been supplied as a part of the journey to Washington, however seemingly everybody acquired one perk or one other. Beyond the greater than 30 influencers in attendance, together with their journey buddies, WIRED counted 10 different individuals who had been, in a method or one other, on the Capitol on behalf of TikTok.

“More than 150 million Americans, including 5 million US businesses, rely on TikTok to innovate, find community, and support their livelihoods,” spokesperson Brown says. “A US ban on TikTok could have a direct impact on the livelihoods of millions of Americans. Lawmakers in Washington debating TikTok should hear firsthand from people whose lives would be directly affected by their decisions.” 

The nearly dozen influencers WIRED spoke with did not hide the fact that TikTok brought them to Washington to support the company. (The plan was first reported by Politico and The Information.) “They took us here, but we’re not being paid,” says Jorge Alverez, a psychological well being advocate from New Jersey. TikTok “paid for transportation—that’s also public information.” 

Alexandra Doten, an expert in space communications who goes by @astro_alexandra on the app, is based near Washington, DC. But she says she also received support from the company. “I got the hotel too!” she says. “I don’t know. They just shuttle me there.”

While Doten was able to meet with her congressman, Maryland’s Glenn Ivey, this week, the highlight for her was meeting astronaut-turned-senator Mark Kelly of Arizona. She also got a true taste of life at the Capitol when the state’s other senator, Kirsten Synema, sent a staffer to meet with the influencers on her behalf. It’s unclear if their goodwill tour will sway any of TikTok’s countless congressional critics, who claim the app poses a threat to US national security.

Chew is the most recent in a line of Big Tech executives who’ve needed to face hostile (if typically uninformed) lawmakers. But in contrast to Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg or Alphabet’s Sundar Pichai, Chew is the one CEO who has had know-how banned on US authorities units or been accused of being a puppet for the Chinese Communist Party.