Ex-Chinese Government Official Was In Charge Of TikTok’s Content Moderation Policies, Report Says

Topline

A former Chinese government official was in charge of making decisions on what content should be allowed on TikTok, the Financial Times reported in a development that raises questions about the company’s previous claim that the Chinese government had no influence over its operations.

Key Facts

Crucial Quote

TikTok told FT that “Cai Zheng was not involved in developing the policies,” and these content policies predated him. “He worked with our growing regional and local teams on localisation of our early content policies,” the company added. Forbes has reached out to TikTok for a comment.

Key Background

Following the threat of a ban in the U.S., last month, TikTok announced that  Oracle and Walmart have agreed to acquire a 20% stake in TikTok’s global business as part of a pre-IPO financing round. As part of this deal, Oracle agreed to acquire 12.5% of the video-sharing platform, while Walmart agreed to hold a 7.5% stake. This deal, which initially had Trump’s “blessing”, was thrown into peril after ByteDance claimed that it would still retain control of TikTok while Oracle and Walmart will serve as minority partners. Both Trump and Oracle then pushed back against this claim with the president stating that he won’t allow the deal unless TikTok’s operations are “ totally controlled” by a U.S. entity like Oracle. Since then, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has said that TikTok must meet all U.S. security requirements in any deal it makes with Oracle — which will include storing code in the U.S. — or it will be forced to shut down. The Trump administration had ordered the removal of the app from smartphone app stores but the move was put on hold by a judge, who ruled in favor of TikTok, stating that Trump’s TikTok ban likely overstepped legal authority.

Further Reading

Former Chinese government official ran TikTok’s content policy as app went global (Financial Times)