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ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming instructed staff on Tuesday there have been misunderstandings on Chinese social media about TikTok’s state of affairs in the United States and that the corporate may face extra difficulties as anti-Chinese sentiment rose overseas.
His feedback in a letter to ByteDance’s Chinese staff got here after the corporate and Zhang have been closely criticised on Chinese social media for coming into into talks with Microsoft to promote TikTok’s US operations.
Chinese media first reported the contents of the inner letter. A supply confirmed the content material of the memo to Reuters.
ByteDance didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
“I actually understand (the criticism),” Zhang stated in the letter. “People have high expectations of a company founded by a Chinese person which is going global but have little information about it. With lots of grievances towards the US government, they tend to lash out at us with harsh criticism.”
Since Monday, some customers of China’s Twitter-like Weibo have stated they might uninstall ByteDance’s Chinese brief video app Douyin and information aggregator Jinri Toutiao as a result of they believed ByteDance had given in too shortly to Washington.
Others urged ByteDance to be taught from US big Google, which opted to pull its search engine out of the Chinese market in 2010 after China requested it to censor its search outcomes, slightly than promoting off its Chinese operations.
Zhang stated some folks had misunderstood the US state of affairs. He stated Washington’s purpose was not to drive a sale of TikTok’s US operations by way of the Committee of Foreign Investment in the US (CFIUS) however to ban the app, and there was a authorized course of ByteDance had no selection however to observe.
Zhang instructed workers on Monday in one other inside letter that the corporate had began talks with a tech firm so it may proceed to provide the TikTok app in the United States.
US President Donald Trump initially dismissed the thought of promoting TikTok’s US operations to Microsoft however modified his thoughts following strain from some advisers and lots of in the Republican get together, as a result of banning TikTok may alienate many younger voters, Reuters has reported.
Zhang additionally instructed staff that during the last two years, anti-Chinese sentiment had risen in many international locations and the corporate should brace for extra difficulties in the present environment.
© Thomson Reuters 2020
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