TikTok’s Owner Employs Many Chinese Communist Party Members At Management Positions, Internal Document Reveals

Tik Tok’s parent company, ByteDance, employs more than 130 people who are a part of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) committee within the company. An internal document revealed that many of these members are employed in the senior management roles.

T he document has confirmed the speculations that ByteDance indeed has ties to the CCP and the confirmation has further fueled concerns over TikTok’s use privacy and security.

TikTok has been under fire over security concerns. The application has already been banned by India and recently on Aug. 6, the U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order to ban transactions with ByteDance, and Chinese internet giant Tencent Holdings Ltd. The ban will take effect in 45 days.

Trump has also asked ByteDance to sell TikTok to either Microsoft or any other American company until Sept 15. Technology giant Microsoft confirmed that the company is already in talks concerning the purchase of the app.

T he internal document relealed that at least 138 employees at ByteDance’s headquarters are a part of the CCP committee and most of them hold important positions in either management or technology. Atleast 60 personnel are classified on the list as someone having a managerial role.

U.S. officials have long claimed that the user data and information collected by TikTok is being shared with Beijing, however, ByteDance has always refuted such claims. Amid increasing tensions between the U.S. and China, the former has intensified scrutiny of TikTok as well as other mobile applications owned by Chinese companies as they are now being considered as something of a national threat.

“ It’s a Chinese-owned company,” said James Carafano, vice president of The Heritage Foundation’s Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy. “You have no confidence in the software. You have no confidence in their handling of data. And you have no confidence that they’re independent of Chinese direction.”

H e further said how such CCP committee memberships are typical of Chinese companies. Chinese companies are required by law to have CCP committee within their offices. It is not yet clear how many CCP members form a part of the committee at ByteDance, which has more than 60,000 employees working in its 230+ global offices.