A recent lawsuit has stated that ByteDance, owner of TikTok, granted access to Chinese Communist Party members to censor content and acquire data. This unit, known as the "Committee," even had a "death switch" to turn off certain programs. According to the lawsuit, ByteDance created a "backdoor channel" to allow CCP access to user data hosted in the US. The lawsuit, which was filed on Friday in San Francisco, claims that the company granted special powers to CCP members inside the company's "Committee," allowing them to oversee its business activities, deem content that was unfavorable to China's interests as a demotion, and shut down Chinese versions of its applications using a death switch.

Even after ByteDance blocked access to individual engineers in China, the lawsuit alleges that the "Committee" still had access to US user data. Specifically, it states that "high level persons" could access user data through a backdoor channel, despite the location of the data being irrelevant, as Chinese law mandates that companies grant access to user data to the government. The lawsuit claims that ByteDance was concerned that if the Chinese government's backdoor were removed from the international/U.S. version of the app, the Chinese government would ban the company's valuable Chinese-version apps.

Yu Yintao, who filed the complaint, claims that he saw the backdoor channel in the company's code, which allowed for this access. Yu, who was wrongfully terminated according to the suit, says that ByteDance created a culture of lawlessness within the company. According to Yu, ByteDance focused on growth at a financial cost. The lawsuit adds that the internal CCP group helped the company preserve "core communist values," sometimes blocking content related to events such as the Hong Kong pro-democracy protests.

A recent lawsuit has stated that ByteDance, owner of TikTok, granted access to Chinese Communist Party members to censor content and acquire data. This unit, known as the "Committee," even had a "death switch" to turn off certain programs. According to the lawsuit, ByteDance created a "backdoor channel" to allow CCP access to user data hosted in the US. The lawsuit, which was filed on Friday in San Francisco, claims that the company granted special powers to CCP members inside the company's "Committee," allowing them to oversee its business activities, deem content that was unfavorable to China's interests as a demotion, and shut down Chinese versions of its applications using a death switch.
Even after ByteDance blocked access to individual engineers in China, the lawsuit alleges that the "Committee" still had access to US user data. Specifically, it states that "high level persons" could access user data through a backdoor channel, despite the location of the data being irrelevant, as Chinese law mandates that companies grant access to user data to the government. The lawsuit claims that ByteDance was concerned that if the Chinese government's backdoor were removed from the international/U.S. version of the app, the Chinese government would ban the company's valuable Chinese-version apps.
Yu Yintao, who filed the complaint, claims that he saw the backdoor channel in the company's code, which allowed for this access. Yu, who was wrongfully terminated according to the suit, says that ByteDance created a culture of lawlessness within the company. According to Yu, ByteDance focused on growth at a financial cost. The lawsuit adds that the internal CCP group helped the company preserve "core communist values," sometimes blocking content related to events such as the Hong Kong pro-democracy protests.

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