A former head of engineering at Bytedance within the United States has stated the corporate discharged him after he voiced concern to administration that it was taking consumer content material from different platforms, primarily Instagram and Snapchat.
The dispute comes at a time when ByteDance-owned app TikTok faces rising requires a nationwide ban from some U.S. lawmakers relating to issues about potential Chinese authorities affect over it.
Yintao “Roger” Yu stated in a grievance filed on Friday in San Francisco state court docket that the Chinese tech firm engaged in a “worldwide scheme to steal and revenue from the content material of others” with out searching for permission.
When Yu raised these issues to larger administration, he stated they dismissed them and requested him to cover the unlawful program, particularly from staff within the United States, because it had stricter IP legal guidelines and sophistication actions.
He was later dismissed by ByteDance in November 2018.
Yu additionally stated within the grievance that ByteDance created fabricated customers to magnify its metrics and served as a helpful propaganda instrument for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
He is searching for a court docket order that may prohibit ByteDance from scraping content material from different social media platforms.
In response to the grievance, ByteDance stated, “We plan to vigorously oppose what we consider are baseless claims and allegations. Mr. Yu labored for ByteDance for lower than a yr.”
ByteDance additionally responded to the scraping allegations, saying it acquired information according to business follow and its international coverage.
In April, Montana lawmakers handed a invoice to ban its short-form TikTok app from working within the state.
In March, U.S. lawmakers questioned TikTok’s Chief Executive Shou Zi Chew about potential Chinese affect, saying its brief movies had been damaging youngsters’s psychological well being, reflecting bipartisan issues in regards to the app’s energy over Americans.
© Thomson Reuters 2023