“Former ByteDance Employee Files Lawsuit: Company Accused of Being a Chinese Propaganda Tool”

Foreign media reported that Yu Yintao (YinTao Yu, transliteration), a former director of the engineering department of China’s ByteDance in the United States, filed a lawsuit in a court in San Francisco on Friday (12th), suing ByteDance for its He was unjustly dismissed for expressing concern to the management about the company’s misconduct. He also pointed out that the Chinese government has a committee within the company and has the highest authority to access data; in addition, the company has become a “useful propaganda for China” tool”.

According to Yu Yintao’s complaint filed with the court, ByteDance “steals content” from other social media Instagram and Snapchat without authorization, and profits from it as its own content. Yu Yintao once reported the above-mentioned problems to the senior management of ByteDance, but the management asked him to conceal the relevant behavior, especially not to let the American employees in the company know.

According to the New York Times, 36-year-old Yu Yintao was born and raised in China and now lives in San Francisco, USA. Yu worked as the director of ByteDance Engineering Department from August 2017 to November 2018.

In addition, Yu Yintao clearly accused in the complaint that ByteDance has become a very useful propaganda tool for the Chinese Communist Party. For example, he said that the content of “hate Japan” can be promoted more on Douyin, but the content supporting Hong Kong’s democratic demonstrations is suppressed and deleted.

Yu Yintao explained that there is a committee controlled by the Chinese government within ByteDance, whose functions are to monitor the company’s operations, provide guidance for promoting socialist core values, and block all information on Douyin. He noted that the committee has supreme authority to access all company data, including data stored in the United States.

Yu Yintao asked the court to order to prohibit ByteDance from continuing to search for content from other social media, and to make compensation and interest for the unreasonable dismissal that year. He pledged to give “the majority” of the money to local Asian American human rights groups in the United States.

“Reuters” quoted ByteDance’s latest response, confirming that Yu Yintao is an employee of the company, but strongly denying its “groundless” accusations against the company. In addition, regarding allegations of scraping content on other social media, ByteDance emphasized that it “respects the intellectual property rights of other companies and obtains data in accordance with industry practices and global policies.”

Source: General Report
Text by FORTUNE INSIGHT

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