The Chinese flag on top of a jail wall.
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A former worker of TikTok’s Chinese parent company ByteDance claims that Chinese police arrested his father and took him to a “remote secret facility” for interrogation and intimidation after the previous worker spoke to the Western press about ByteDance’s censorship of content on TikTok.
The allegations appear in a redacted filing in federal court within the case of one other alleged TikTok whistleblower, Yintao Yu. In an affidavit, the previous worker says he worked at TikTok’s headquarters in Beijing in 2019 and 2020 and that “one of the main functions” of the platform he worked for was “censoring content on TikTok.” According to the statement, he moved to the U.S. for graduate studies and spoke about ByteDance’s censorship of TikTok in a 2022 interview with Agence France-Presse that was later translated and republished by the BBC.
Under oath, the previous worker wrote that his father had passed on the officers’ instructions: “The Chinese National Police told me to keep quiet. They also told me to contact the BBC and retract the BBC article, which I did under duress and fear.” He said the BBC refused to retract its article.
“The Chinese National Police continued to harass my family on other occasions and asked me to delete my social media posts on Twitter, which I eventually did after my family was threatened.”
The former worker didn’t claim that ByteDance had knowledge of or involvement within the alleged intimidation of his father by Chinese police.
Forbes couldn’t independently confirm the previous worker’s claims. ByteDance stated in a court document that it “unequivocally denies any involvement” within the alleged incidents.
The former employees’ allegations, if true, suggest the Chinese government has a direct interest in shutting down public discussion of censorship on TikTok. They come to light at a critical time for TikTok and ByteDance. In April, Congress passed a law, which President Biden signed, requiring ByteDance to sell TikTok — a sale the Chinese government says would violate Chinese law — or the app can be banned within the U.S. The law relies on national security concerns that the Chinese government could force ByteDance to make use of TikTok to gather private details about Americans or use its powerful advice algorithm to influence the news people see. TikTok says it has never provided the Chinese government with private details about American users.
TikTok and ByteDance, together with developers who use the TikTok app, have challenged the constitutionality of the law in court, arguing that it violates their First Amendment rights. The fate of the law currently rests with a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit, which is able to likely rule on the First Amendment issues before the top of this yr.
Last yr, the Justice Department’s Criminal Division launched an investigation into ByteDance after Forbes reported that the corporate had used TikTok to observe journalists – a report that ByteDance later confirmed. The company also got here under fire from lawmakers after Forbes announced that it had monitored the usage of a whole lot of “sensitive words” on its platforms and made the financial data of 1000’s of developers and advertisers widely available to employees in China. ByteDance said it didn’t use lots of its sensitive words lists on TikTok. It acknowledged that some TikTok developers’ data was accessible in China and declined to comment on advertisers’ data.
The BBC didn’t immediately reply to requests for comment.
The anonymous former worker isn’t a celebration to the proceedings during which his statement was filed. This case involves one other alleged whistleblower, Yintao Yu, who claimed in a letter filed in 2023, interview with the New York Times that ByteDance used TikTok to spread anti-Japanese rhetoric and condemnation of protests in and about Hong Kong.
The statement was submitted in support of a motion for a retrial filed by Yu’s lawyers. Yu had asked that a witness in his case remain anonymous, however the judge ruled against him on that time. In an unsuccessful try to change the judge’s mind, his lawyers relied partly on the previous worker’s redacted story to show the true harm people in China can face for speaking out about TikTok and ByteDance.
Mike Hughes, a spokesman for ByteDance, issued the next statement: “We have already addressed these allegations in court and the court has since denied Mr. Yu’s motion for reconsideration. As we said in our filing, ‘To be clear, BDI unequivocally denies any involvement’ in these alleged events. We also note in our filing that Mr. Yu committed perjury in this and other cases.”
In the Yu case, ByteDance has vehemently argued that Yu is a biased and unreliable witness who gave contradictory testimony in court. However, the lawyers have in a roundabout way disputed the previous worker’s testimony, only stating that their client had no involvement.
Charles Jung, a lawyer for Mr Yu, said in a press release: “ByteDance’s artfully worded statement speaks volumes. They deny the allegations only on behalf of ‘BDI’ (ByteDance Inc., ByteDance’s US subsidiary) and not on behalf of ByteDance more broadly.”
In one among the documents, ByteDance’s lawyers appear to dismiss the previous worker’s testimony as “hearsay from third parties criticizing the Chinese government’s alleged detention of political dissidents.” It is unclear whether the lawyers were calling the previous worker or his father a “political dissident” due to his comments concerning the company.
The affidavit of the previous worker as recorded in the general public register is offered Here.
