Chinese company Bytedance is facing allegations from a former head of engineering in the United States that he was fired for bringing to management’s attention that the company was illegally scraping user content off of competing platforms, mainly Instagram and Snapchat, and placing it on its own platform.
The allegations are being leveled as the company is facing growing pressure from lawmakers for a nationwide ban on its social media video sharing site TikTok, due to concerns over Chinese government influence over it.
In a complaint filed on Friday in San Francisco state court, Yintao “Roger” Yu said that the Chinese company had been engaged in a “worldwide scheme to steal and profit from the content of others,” without seeking authorization to share the content.
Yu alleges that when he brought his concerns to his higher management, they ignored them, asking him to conceal the illegal program being used for that purpose. especially for employees in the United States, since US intellectual property law was stricter, and could allow for class action lawsuits.
He was subsequently fired from Bytedance in 2018.
Yu also alleged in his complaint that Bytedance utilized fabricated user accounts to generate exaggerated metrics, and that the company was used as a propaganda tool by the Chinese Communist Party.
In his lawsuit he is asking the court to provide a court order forbidding ByteDance from scraping content off other sites and social media platforms.
In a response to the filing, ByteDance said, “We plan to vigorously oppose what we believe are baseless claims and allegations. Mr. Yu worked for ByteDance Inc. for less than a year.”
ByteDance also noted, that with regard to the scraping allegations, it acquired its content using methods consistent with industry practice and its global policy.
In March, TikTok’s Chief Executive Shou Zi Chew was questioned by US lawmakers over potential Chinese government influence over the platform, as well as the effect its short videos were having on the mental health of children. Since then a bipartisan consensus has arisen over concerns about the influence the app is having on Americans who use it, as well as how it is gathering data on American citizens.
