NOT A GOOD LOOK FOR TIM COOK: Apple and TikTok skipped a Senate hearing on Big Tech and China, and empty seats show lawmakers aren’t pleased.

The missing tech execs were given the “empty seat treatment,” according to Politico reporter Cristiano Lima, with their names prominently displayed on the vacant table and chair reserved for them.

Senator Josh Hawley has been one of the biggest critics of TikTok and of Big Tech in general, and he tweeted his disapproval at the companies that skipped the hearing.

Concerns about major tech companies’ connections to China have grown in the past year. Short video app TikTok, which has been download over 1 billion times, in particular has been scrutinized for allegedly censoring content that could anger the Chinese government. In September, The Guardian reported on internal TikTok documents instructing the moderators to censor politically fraught topics including Tiananmen Square and an independent Tibet. The company said that these guidelines were no longer in use, and that the Chinese government has no control over them, because the app does not operate in China.

Then why not testify that to Congress?