A former executive of TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, has made accusations against the company, including content theft from competitors like Instagram and Snapchat and serving as a “propaganda tool” for the Chinese government. Yintao Yu, the former head of engineering for ByteDance’s U.S. operations, made these allegations as part of a wrongful termination lawsuit in San Francisco Superior Court. Yu was fired for disclosing “wrongful conduct” he saw at the company. He claims the Chinese government monitored ByteDance’s work from its Beijing headquarters and provided guidance on advancing “core communist values.”
Access to All Company Data and TikTok’s Scraper Software
Yu also alleges that government officials had the ability to turn off ByteDance’s Chinese version of apps while maintaining access to all company data, including information stored in the United States. The former executive claims that ByteDance developed software to scrape user content from competitors’ websites without permission and reposted the content on its own websites, including TikTok, to attract more engagement from users.
Demotion of Hong Kong Protests and Promotion of Content Expressing Hatred for Japan
In another shocking allegation, Yu claims he observed ByteDance promoting content that expressed hatred for Japan on Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok. At another time, he said the company demoted content that showed support for the protests in Hong Kong while promoting content that expressed criticism of the protests.
Fake User Accounts and Seeking Damages
Yu also alleges the company created fake users to boost its engagement metrics, including by programming them to “like” and “follow” real accounts. He is seeking punitive damage, lost earnings, and 220,000 ByteDance shares that had not vested by the time he was fired.
These allegations come as TikTok faces heightened scrutiny in the U.S. about whether it can keep American data safe from the Chinese government. The Biden administration has threatened to ban the app if its Chinese owners don’t sell their stakes. TikTok has denied giving U.S. user data to China’s government and wants to store U.S. user data on servers operated by the software giant Oracle. However, these accusations made by Yu have further fuelled concerns regarding the Chinese-owned app’s operations.
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