In July, BuzzFeed News reported allegations by former employees that ByteDance had pushed pro-China messages to Americans in its now-defunct news app, TopBuzz, which was active between 20. (TikTok confirmed the reporting in a late-June letter to nine Republican senators.) In June, BuzzFeed News reported that ByteDance employees in China had repeatedly accessed sensitive information about US TikTok users, setting off a flurry of responses from legislators and regulators in the US and abroad. In recent months, concern about TikTok has risen due to a string of new reports about the app’s links to the Chinese government. “It’s probably a normal career path I’m sure ByteDance pays more,” he said, but “ties back to the old homestead might be concerning.” James Lewis, director of the Strategic Technologies Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told Forbes that he wasn’t surprised that a lot of Chinese state media employees would eventually move over to ByteDance and TikTok. During their tenure, chinagate.cn published headlines including, "Safeguarding Xi's core position is the key: communique," "Under Xi's watch, China's sunshine island basks in warmth of opening up," and "Xi stresses importance of The Communist Manifesto."īoth TikTok and ByteDance declined to answer questions about if they have collaborated with Chinese state media entities to produce or distribute content. Per LinkedIn, the TikTok employee worked as an editor for the center’s “China Development Gateway” (chinagate.cn). She confirmed they do work on ByteDance’s businesses outside of China. Banks said that this individual could not have held a “senior-level” position because they are not a Chinese national. One profile, representing a current TikTok “feature strategy lead,” says that person previously worked for the China Internet Information Center, or, a state-run web portal whose editor-in-chief is also a party secretary and former deputy head of propaganda for the Chinese Communist Party. Many of the LinkedIn profiles detail work on Toutiao and Douyin, which must comply with stringent Chinese censorship laws.īut 50 profiles also specifically mentioned work on TikTok, in areas including policy, strategy, operations, monetization, user experience and localization (the process of adapting a product to fit the needs of foreign markets). Chinese state media entities are among the most popular accounts on Douyin, where they have many millions of followers. In addition to TikTok, ByteDance runs numerous other websites and services, including two of mainland China’s most popular apps: Douyin (a short form video app) and Toutiao (a news aggregator). The profiles also provide critical insight into how ByteDance manages its relationship with Chinese state media entities. The LinkedIn profiles raise further concerns that China could use TikTok’s broad cultural influence in the US for its own ends, a fear that led a cohort of US politicians, including former president Donald Trump, to call for a ban on the app in 2019.īyteDance Headquarters on Januin Shanghai, China.
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In recent months, the app has been hailed as a powerful driver of American culture, and has rapidly emerged as a critical player in our electoral and civic discourse. People spend more time on TikTok today than they do on any other app. In response to the 15 profiles that show ByteDance employees concurrently employed by Chinese state media, she added that ByteDance “does not allow employees to hold second or part-time jobs, or any outside business activity, that would cause a conflict of interest.” Outside of China, employees also bring experience in government, public policy, and media organizations from dozens of markets." For our China-market businesses, that includes people who have previously worked in government or state media positions in China.
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Jennifer Banks, a spokesperson for ByteDance, said that ByteDance makes “hiring decisions based purely on an individual’s professional capability to do the job.
None of the state media outlets named in this story responded to a request for comment. ByteDance and TikTok did not contest that the 300 LinkedIn profiles represent current employees or deny their connections to Chinese state media.
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