The LinkedIn profiles for hundreds of China-owned Tiktok and ByteDance employees reveal that many used to work for Chinese state media, and in some cases still maintain their employment with Chinese government mouthpieces.
Forbes reports that three hundred current employees at TikTok and its parent company ByteDance previously worked for Chinese state media publications, according to public employee LinkedIn profiles. 23 of the profiles appear to have been created by current ByteDance directors who manage departments relating to content partnerships, public affairs, corporate social responsibility, and “media cooperation.”
TikTok influencers Florin Vitan (L) and Alessia Lanza (Photo by MIGUEL MEDINA / AFP) (Photo by MIGUEL MEDINA/AFP via Getty Images)
15 profiles indicate that current ByteDance employees are also employed by Chinese state media entities while working at TikTok’s parent company. Some of these publications include Xinhua News Agency, China Radio International and China Central / China Global Television. All of these organizations have been designated “foreign government functionaries” by the State Department.
50 profiles appear to represent employees working on TikTok, including a content strategy manager who was formerly employed as a Chief Correspondent for Xinhua News. The LinkedIn profiles reveal significant connections between TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, and the Chinese government’s propaganda organizations.
Unlike social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, TikTok does not label accounts controlled by Chinese state media. In March, TikTok announced a plan to label “some” state media entities, but still, no context or labels indicating state media involvement have been added to the accounts of organizations such as China News Service, Xinhua News Service, CGTN, and the Global Times.
A ByteDance spokesperson did not deny that the LinkedIn accounts were of current employees, and told Forbes that ByteDance makes “hiring decisions based purely on an individual’s professional capability to do the job. For our China-market businesses, that includes people who have previously worked in government or state media positions in China. Outside of China, employees also bring experience in government, public policy, and media organizations from dozens of markets.”
Responding to questions about the fifteen employees that appeared to be working at both ByteDance and Chinese media organizations simultaneously, ByteDance said that it “does not allow employees to hold second or part-time jobs, or any outside business activity, that would cause a conflict of interest.”
In July, Tiktok confirmed that employees in China can access the private user data of Americans.
Breitbart News reported:
The CEO of TikTok parent company ByteDance, Shou Zi Chew, said in a June 30 letter that China-based employees who clear a number of internal security protocols can access certain information on U.S.-based TikTok users including public videos and comments. Chew claims that none of this information is shared with the Chinese government and is subject to “robust cybersecurity controls.”
The company claims that it is working on strengthening data security around sensitive information, including any that is defined as “protected” by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US (CFIUS). This new cybersecurity effort is called “Project Texas” and includes physically storing U.S. information in data centers on U.S. servers owned by Oracle Corp.
“TikTok’s response confirms our fears about the CCP’s influence in the company were well founded,” Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) told Bloomberg on Friday. “The Chinese-run company should have come clean from the start, but it attempted to shroud its work in secrecy. Americans need to know if they are on TikTok, Communist China has their information.”
Read more at Forbes here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan