A former US-based executive of ByteDance Ltd (字節跳動), the Chinese company that owns TikTok, has sued it for wrongful dismissal, saying he was fired for sounding the alarm over what he called its “culture of lawlessness.”
The suit, filed by Yu Yin-tao (余英濤) in San Francisco, California, comes as political pressure has been growing in the US to ban TikTok.
Critics said the popular platform allows Beijing to covertly collect users’ data and influence their opinions — something the company denies.
Photo: Reuters
In his suit, Yu said that he discovered shortly after being hired in 2017 that ByteDance “was stealing” videos published on rival sites such as Instagram and Snapchat and presenting them as its own.
Yu, who was ByteDance’s US head of engineering, said he notified company leaders about the problem, but the “intellectual property infringement continued unabated.”
He was fired in November 2018.
Yu on Friday last week submitted an amendment to his original complaint — which was filed on May 1 — accusing ByteDance of serving “as a useful propaganda tool for the Chinese Communist Party.”
He said he had seen ByteDance give prominence to content expressing “hatred for Japan,” while playing down posts supporting pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong.
Yu said that Chinese government officials had a unit in the US office that “maintained supreme access to all the company data, even data stored in the United States.”
“My client is the most senior executive at ByteDance to come forward publicly,” Yu’s lawyer Charles Jung said on Saturday.
“My client is concerned about protecting American user data, about the ethical operations of the app and the wellbeing of ByteDance’s employees,” he said.
The issue of access to personal data on US users has aroused growing concern among US authorities. The company said it stores that data only on US-based servers.
The White House recently threatened to ban TikTok in the US unless ByteDance sold it to a US company.
Semiconductor shares in China surged yesterday after Reuters reported the US had ordered chipmaking giant Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) to halt shipments of advanced chips to Chinese customers, which investors believe could accelerate Beijing’s self-reliance efforts. TSMC yesterday started to suspend shipments of certain sophisticated chips to some Chinese clients after receiving a letter from the US Department of Commerce imposing export restrictions on those products, Reuters reported on Sunday, citing an unnamed source. The US imposed export restrictions on TSMC’s 7-nanometer or more advanced designs, Reuters reported. Investors figured that would encourage authorities to support China’s industry and bought shares
TECH WAR CONTINUES: The suspension of TSMC AI chips and GPUs would be a heavy blow to China’s chip designers and would affect its competitive edge Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, is reportedly to halt supply of artificial intelligence (AI) chips and graphics processing units (GPUs) made on 7-nanometer or more advanced process technologies from next week in order to comply with US Department of Commerce rules. TSMC has sent e-mails to its Chinese AI customers, informing them about the suspension starting on Monday, Chinese online news outlet Ijiwei.com (愛集微) reported yesterday. The US Department of Commerce has not formally unveiled further semiconductor measures against China yet. “TSMC does not comment on market rumors. TSMC is a law-abiding company and we are
FLEXIBLE: Taiwan can develop its own ground station equipment, and has highly competitive manufacturers and suppliers with diversified production, the MOEA said The Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) yesterday disputed reports that suppliers to US-based Space Exploration Technologies Corp (SpaceX) had been asked to move production out of Taiwan. Reuters had reported on Tuesday last week that Elon Musk-owned SpaceX had asked their manufacturers to produce outside of Taiwan given geopolitical risks and that at least one Taiwanese supplier had been pushed to relocate production to Vietnam. SpaceX’s requests place a renewed focus on the contentious relationship Musk has had with Taiwan, especially after he said last year that Taiwan is an “integral part” of China, sparking sharp criticism from Taiwanese authorities. The ministry said
US President Joe Biden’s administration is racing to complete CHIPS and Science Act agreements with companies such as Intel Corp and Samsung Electronics Co, aiming to shore up one of its signature initiatives before US president-elect Donald Trump enters the White House. The US Department of Commerce has allocated more than 90 percent of the US$39 billion in grants under the act, a landmark law enacted in 2022 designed to rebuild the domestic chip industry. However, the agency has only announced one binding agreement so far. The next two months would prove critical for more than 20 companies still in the process
RSS