Two letters illustrate persuasive communication for students to analyze. The first is a letter from nine republican U.S. senators following a BuzzFeed article, “Leaked Audio From 80 Internal TikTok Meetings Shows That US User Data Has Been Repeatedly Accessed From China.”

The second is TikTok’s response. After a few introductory paragraphs (which say very little, in my opinion), CEO Shou Zi Chew tackles each question in sequence.

As we might expect, some responses are clearer than others. In a fairly obvious obfuscation, Chew doesn’t respond to sub-questions (a, b, c, etc.) individually. Question 9, about Beijing parent company ByteDance and a newly named subsidiary, is particularly confusing.

Despite company efforts, at least one senator believes TikTok should testify before Congress.

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