Former Head Of Bytedance Engineering In US Files Lawsuit, Accuses TikTok Of Stealing Content From Instagram And Snapchat

Yintao "Roger" Yu (left), former chief engineer ByteDance. (photo: twitter @iduse_or_false)

JAKARTA - A former engineering chief at Bytedance in the United States said the company fired him after he expressed concern to management that they were taking user content from other platforms, especially Instagram and Snapchat.

This dispute comes at a time when ByteDance's app, TikTok, faces growing calls to be banned across the United States due to concerns about the Chinese government's influence on it.

Yintao "Roger" Yu said in a lawsuit filed on Friday May 12 in a San Francisco state court that the Chinese tech company was involved in a "global scheme for stealing and benefiting from other people's content" without permission.

When Yu expressed this concern to higher management, he said they ignored it and asked it to hide the illegal program, especially from employees in the United States, as the country has stricter intellectual property laws and collective action.

He was later dismissed by ByteDance in November 2018.

Reuters reported, Yu also said in the lawsuit that ByteDance made fake users to exaggerate its metric and serve as a useful propaganda tool for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

He submitted a request to the court to ban ByteDance from taking content from other social media platforms.

Responding to the lawsuit, ByteDance said, "We plan to firmly oppose what we believe to be baseless demands and accusations. Mr. Yu worked for ByteDance Inc. for less than a year."

ByteDance also responded to content-taking allegations, saying they acquired the data according to their industrial practices and global policies.

In April, legislators in Montana passed a law banning short video-based TikTok apps from operating in the state.

In March, US legislators questioned TikTok's Chief Executive, Shou Zi Chew, about China's potential influence, saying its short video was damaging to children's mental health, reflecting bipartisan concerns about the power of this app against Americans.