TikTok workers report growing Chinese oversight of US operations

Insider

TikTok has been close to getting banned in the US for months because of a law that requires it to find a new owner outside of China. But employees say Chinese leadership is actually taking over more control of the US business — not less.

Transcript

00:00Remember when TikTok almost got banned? Well, that drama isn't exactly over. The company has

00:05still been close to getting banned for months due to a law that requires it to find a new owner

00:10outside of China. But inside the company, employees told me that Chinese leadership is actually taking

00:15over more control of the US business, not less. US executives have left the company in the past

00:21year and as they've exited, Chinese leaders have taken over. Some employees told me they now have

00:25to take meetings late at night to accommodate colleagues in China. Others said they've

00:30struggled to work with documents that are translated from Mandarin. TikTok is currently

00:34owned by ByteDance, a Chinese tech company, and US politicians don't like that. They're worried

00:39that the Chinese government could use TikTok to spread propaganda or collect data on American

00:44citizens. TikTok has previously said neither action has happened. The current plan is to separate

00:48TikTok in the US from its Chinese ownership. There's been a mad rush to try to buy the app

00:53from tech companies and billionaires and even public figures like Mr. Beast. The entire business could

00:58change if a sale of the US app goes through. But with the US and China embroiled in a trade war,

01:03there's still a ton of obstacles ahead.

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