ByteDance does not regularly release official user numbers for its apps. Founded in 2012 by tech entrepreneur Yiming Zhang, ByteDance quickly launched a suite of apps beginning that same year with Neihan Duanzi, a platform where users shared jokes in the form of short videos, memes and written posts. BEIJING (AP) — U.S. lawmakers have grilled TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew https://bigbostrade.com/ about data security and harmful content, with some pushing to ban the popular short-video app nationwide. ByteDance products have faced government-led investigations and large-scale bans in other countries, including Australia, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Pakistan, and Turkey. Hello and TikTok were banned in India, thereby removing millions of users from the apps’ reach.
The company’s main services include providing platforms to inform, educate, entertain, and inspire people across languages, cultures, and geographies. Woodward says that even if there is no evidence that TikTok is doing anything with user data other than what is being done by the other major social media platforms, the background presence of China will remain difficult to shake for sceptics. ByteDance disclosed in December that four employees gained access to data about reporters and people connected to them while looking for how information about the company was leaked. Chew told the lawmakers China-based ByteDance employees may still have access to some U.S. data but that won’t be the case once Project Texas is complete. During the past decade, ByteDance has proven itself time and again to be a spectacularly innovative and successful company. This has been true not only for TikTok but many of its other apps, which have vast numbers of users.
It is also unclear how drug discovery or development, and other science-focused efforts, fit into ByteDance’s sprawling repertoire of social media sensations like TikTok and its Chinese counterpart Douyin. ByteDance declined to comment on what its objectives are, how large the AI for Drug Design and Science teams are today and who it may have already hired. ByteDance has also been accused of using apps like TikTok to employ intrusive data-gathering techniques. In 2022 Forbes technology reporter Emily Baker-White claimed that she had been spied on and tracked by ByteDance after writing an article critical of TikTok.
In July 2018, ByteDance said Douyin and TikTok had 500 million monthly average users (MAUs). That number could now be higher because the company said in January that Douyin alone had 500 million MAUs in China. In 2016 ByteDance released the video-sharing app Douyin, exclusively for users in China. The popularity of Douyin in China inspired the team to develop TikTok for international audiences. TikTok is an app platform that allows users to post short-form videos and share content from their cell phones.
Company officials initially rebuffed these claims but later admitted that their employees had obtained data from American TikTok users, including journalists and those connected to them. According to Baker-White, this misuse of data included spying on her and other users’ IP addresses in an attempt to track an internal mole at the company who was thought to be in contact with reporters. Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) announced that they had begun an investigation in late 2022 into the claim against ByteDance. WeChat is a technology company that operates in the mobile communication and social networking industry. The company offers a messaging and calling app that supports voice, photo, video, and text messages, and also facilitates group chats.
- ByteDance has overtaken Baidu to become the second-largest performer in China.
- In 2016 ByteDance released the video-sharing app Douyin, exclusively for users in China.
- Buybacks by private companies are often a way for shareholders to make a return on their early investments, especially when there is no liquidity event like an initial public offering or acquisition.
- The researchers noted that « recent language-model advancements » allowed them to create this tool.
- In 2019 TikTok user Feroza Aziz’s account was suspended after she posted a video criticizing the Chinese government’s mass detention of Uyghur Muslims.
- In 2008, Yiming joined Microsoft, however found it tough to cope up with the company rules of Microsoft which made him leave Microsoft to join Fanfou (Twitter clone in China).
Chew downplayed any connection to or favouritism toward China’s government and elaborated on the steps the company planned to take to better protect the data of American users. Despite this reassurance, the U.S. state of Montana passed a law to ban the app in the state. TikTok recently tried to tamp down concerns from U.S. lawmakers that it poses a national security threat because it is owned by the Chinese internet company ByteDance. The viral video app insisted it had an arm’s-length relationship with ByteDance and that its own executive was in charge. TikTok has disputed both the accusations that it collects more data than other social media companies, and that Chinese authorities could access data from its users. The Communist Party’s extensive internet filters block most users in China from seeing TikTok.
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In addition, in November 2022 the European Union (EU) confirmed the existence of an ongoing investigation into TikTok’s data practices, including data transmissions to China. It also has others like TopBuzz, a platform that trading central recommends trending videos and articles to users, and BaBe, a news aggregation app in Indonesia. House Committee on Energy and Commerce to address accusations that the app is a threat to American national security.
TikTok: re-defining social media with user engagement
Despite the company’s grandiose success, ByteDance has faced international scrutiny as a result of accusations that the company imposes censorship in favour of the Chinese government. For example, users have accused the company of deleting articles on BaBe that were critical of the Chinese government. In 2019 TikTok user Feroza Aziz’s account was suspended after she posted a video criticizing the Chinese government’s mass detention of Uyghur Muslims. A ByteDance spokesman initially claimed that Aziz was suspended because of a previous offense that violated TikTok’s policies. TikTok later claimed that a “moderation error” caused the ban and offered Aziz an apology. TikTok is laying off employees in an effort to reduce costs, according to employees at the video-sharing platform, making it the latest technology company to conduct a round of staff reductions in recent weeks.
Artificial Intelligence
ByteDance also serves as the parent company of several popular social media and news apps. At just 10 years old, ByteDance, the most valuable startup in the world, has shattered records for growth. In 2021, with 1.9 billion monthly active users in 150 countries, and an employee base of over 110,000, the company recorded an astonishing $58 billion in revenues. Most users know the company only by its hit short-video app TikTok, which has been downloaded over 3 billion times globally, a feat only exceeded by Meta and its family of apps. But ByteDance has actually churned out one wildly successful product after another — among them its initial hit, Toutiao, the most popular news app in China, which today has 320 million monthly active users, and Douyin, a short-video app that preceded TikTok. Respectively, Toutiao and Douyin account for 20% and 60% of the company’s total advertising revenues.
“They’re undoubtedly trying to find a way to leapfrog or get access to people with skills in those areas,” said Schmidt, the professor from Vanderbilt. We believe at ByteDance that high ethical standards and a culture of integrity play a pivotal role throughout the development of the company. Therefore, we have developed the ByteDance Code of Conduct and ByteDance Partner Code of Conduct.
ByteDance is part of a growing number of Chinese companies setting its sights on overseas markets including the U.S. Laws and regulations are only one aspect of the Communist Party’s pervasive control. The authorities also can threaten to cancel licenses, conduct regulatory or tax investigations and use other penalties to compel compliance by Chinese and foreign companies operating in China.
It’s looking to expand beyond those services to potentially new areas like smartphones, as it looks for further growth areas — but analysts said that could be a tough task. In Thursday’s hearing, lawmakers repeatedly tried to pin down Chew on whether ByteDance had links to China’s communist rulers. The fear is that ByteDance would have to hand over information it obtained from TikTok if ordered to do so by Chinese authorities, but Chew has said Project Texas will put U.S. data out of China’s reach. The Chinese government has also sought more direct control over companies by getting seats on boards of directors. China’s 2017 National Intelligence Law states that “any organization” must assist or cooperate with state intelligence work while a separate 2014 Counter-Espionage Law says “relevant organizations … ByteDance says 60% of its shares are owned by non-Chinese investors such as U.S investment firms Carlyle Group and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and Japan’s SoftBank Group.
Approximately a year later, ByteDance accelerated globalization with the launch of its global short video product, TikTok. It quickly took off in markets like Southeast Asia, signaling a new opportunity for the company. ByteDance acquired Musical.ly in November 2017 and subsequently merged it with TikTok. Today, the TikTok platform, which is available outside of China, has become the leading destination for short-form mobile videos worldwide. ByteDance, Chinese technology company that developed novel video-sharing social networking applications, most notably TikTok.
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