Former TikTok Employees Say Company Works Closely with China’s ByteDance Despite Claiming Otherwise

Former TikTok employees reportedly say the app has worked closely with its parent company, Chinese technology giant ByteDance, despite claiming otherwise.

While TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew told U.S. lawmakers in January that the app had severed most of its connections with ByteDance — which is beholden to the Chinese Communist Party — 11 former employees, four of whom were employed as recently as last year, told Fortune a different story.

In one example, Evan Turner, who worked as a senior data scientist at TikTok from April to September 2022, said that he first reported to a ByteDance executive in Beijing, but at some point was told to start reporting to a Seattle-based executive.

TikTok Influencers film video (MIGUEL MEDINA /Getty)

The only problem was that this American

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