The former head of engineering at Bytedance in the United States has alleged that the company terminated his employment after he raised concerns about the unauthorized use of user content from competitor platforms such as Instagram and Snapchat.
This revelation comes amidst escalating calls from certain U.S. lawmakers for a nationwide ban on TikTok, the app owned by ByteDance, amid fears of potential influence from the Chinese government.
In a legal complaint filed in San Francisco state court, Yintao “Roger” Yu accused the Chinese tech giant of executing a “global scheme to steal and profit from the content of others” without obtaining necessary permissions.
Yu claimed that when he brought these concerns to senior management, they disregarded his warnings and instructed him to conceal the purported illegal program, particularly from U.S. employees, due to the country’s more stringent intellectual property laws and the risk of class action lawsuits.
He was ultimately dismissed from ByteDance in November 2018.
Additionally, Yu alleged in his complaint that ByteDance fabricated accounts to inflate its user metrics and leveraged its platform as a propaganda outlet for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
Yu is now seeking a court order to prevent ByteDance from scraping content from other social media networks.
In its response to the allegations, ByteDance asserted, “We intend to vigorously contest what we consider baseless claims and allegations. Mr. Yu was employed by ByteDance for less than a year.”
Regarding the scraping accusation, ByteDance stated that it collects data in accordance with industry standards and its global policy.
Earlier in April, lawmakers in Montana passed a bill aimed at banning TikTok from operating within the state.
In March, TikTok’s CEO Shou Zi Chew faced inquiries from U.S. lawmakers about potential Chinese influence on the platform, as they expressed concerns about its effects on children’s mental health, reflecting bipartisan wariness about the app’s impact on American users.
© Thomson Reuters 2023
