"TikTok Used as a Propaganda Tool by China" ... Ex-Executive's Revelation

ByteDance Dismissed Executive Claims Unfair Dismissal Lawsuit
"Chinese Government Also Has Access to All Company Data"

There has been a revelation that the Chinese government used the Chinese video platform TikTok as a ‘propaganda tool’ for the Communist Party.

According to the Associated Press on the 12th (local time), Wei Yintao, who worked as the head of engineering for ByteDance’s U.S. division providing TikTok services from August 2017 to November 2018, submitted an additional brief to the San Francisco District Court on the same day regarding his wrongful termination lawsuit against the company.

[Image source=AP Yonhap News]

In the document, Wei Yintao claimed that the Chinese government monitored the business through ByteDance’s Beijing headquarters and provided guidelines to ByteDance to promote ‘core communist values.’

He also asserted that the Chinese government had the authority to shut down ByteDance’s Chinese apps and had access to all of ByteDance’s data, including information stored in the United States.

Wei Yintao’s testimony adds weight to the recent ‘TikTok ban’ movement that has emerged amid national security concerns in the United States.

TikTok is an app that allows users to share short videos of up to three minutes. It has over 150 million users in the United States alone. Some have argued that the Chinese government could misuse information of American TikTok users and have called for TikTok to be banned in the U.S.

The Joe Biden administration has warned that if TikTok’s Chinese founders do not sell their TikTok shares to American capital, TikTok usage could be banned in the United States.

TikTok has denied providing American users’ data to the Chinese government. It also proposed measures such as storing U.S. user information on servers owned by the American company Oracle and deleting records stored on servers in places like Singapore.

In his brief, Wei Yintao claimed that TikTok attempted to promote Japan-hating content and deliberately spread content criticizing the Hong Kong pro-democracy protests. He also said fake users were created to increase the number of ‘likes’ and ‘follows’ on certain content and accounts.

Earlier this month, Wei Yintao filed a wrongful termination lawsuit against ByteDance in the San Francisco District Court, stating he was fired for exposing the company’s misconduct.

He is seeking punitive damages, lost wages, and 220,000 shares of ByteDance stock.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.