Indonesia, a country of 270 million where over half the population is under 30, is one of ByteDance’s fastest-growing markets. The company has repeatedly disputed those allegations.
“Entities such as ByteDance ultimately answer to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and have a history of censoring free speech to conform to CCP propaganda,” the person said. This is another reason TikTok as it currently exists should be banned in the United States.”Ī senior Trump administration official also weighed in on the news. “We shouldn’t trust any assurances they make.
“If ByteDance will censor BaBe in Indonesia, what’s to stop it from censoring TikTok in the United States?” Hawley said, when asked to comment on the Reuters story. Some U.S lawmakers, including Republican Senator Josh Hawley, have raised concerns over TikTok’s data security practices and allegations that it engages in censorship at the behest of the Chinese government. U.S President Donald Trump has threatened to shut down ByteDance’s short-video app TikTok - widely popular in the U.S., Indonesia and other countries - on national security grounds unless it is sold to a U.S. It also said that it noted the Indonesian firm’s statement and hoped media outlets would objectively and fairly report on Chinese companies’ normal overseas exchange and cooperation efforts. The Chinese Foreign Ministry said in a fax that it has consistently requested Chinese enterprises abide by international rules and local laws as a basis to develop international cooperation. China’s internet regulator, the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
It did not immediately respond to a follow-up Reuters query asking which month in 2019 those guidelines had changed.īyteDance in Beijing said it had no additional comment beyond the BaBe statement. “These guidelines were replaced in 2019 and we’ve since built and empowered local moderation teams to make decisions that suit the local market,” the statement added. Those guidelines, which are published on its website, do not mention China or the Chinese government.įollowing the publication of this story, BaBe said that before the “more localised approach” it currently uses, Babe had “some moderation practices in place that were not consistent with our philosophy of having the Indonesian team deciding what is appropriate for its market. In a statement to Reuters, BaBe said it disagreed with the claims and that it moderates content according to its community guidelines and in line with Indonesia’s local laws. The sources said that local moderators were instructed by a team from ByteDance’s Beijing headquarters to delete articles seen as “negative” about Chinese authorities on the Baca Berita (BaBe) app. Logos of Bytedance, the China-based company which owns the short video app TikTok, or Douyin, are seen on a strap of an employee card, in Beijing, China August 13, 2020.