- Chinese internet Theatre troupe Bytedance, which owns the popular short-form video app TikTok, accused Facebook of plagiarism and smears following estimation from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
- “ByteDance has always been committed to becoming a global company. During this activity, we have faced all kinds of complex and unimaginable difficulties, including the tense international political environment, collision and combat of different cultures and plagiarism and smears from competitor Facebook,” it said.
- Last year, Zuckerberg accused the Chinese-owned app of censoring administrative protest. TikTok has denied the claim.
- The company’s claims comes amid mounting efforts from the US to ban TikTok from the surroundings, citing security concerns.
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SHANGHAI (Reuters) – TikTok proprietress ByteDance has accused Facebook of plagiarism and smears although it did not elaborate on the accusation.
The Chinese firm also said it honoured “complex and unimaginable difficulties” as it worked to grow into global company.
The Beijing-based company made the comments in a report late on Sunday posted on its official account on Jinri Toutiao, a news aggregator app it owns.
“ByteDance has always been put away to becoming a global company. During this process, we have faced all kinds of complex and unimaginable difficulties, counting the tense international political environment, collision and conflict of different cultures and plagiarism and smears from competitor Facebook,” it broke.
TikTok has attracted criticism from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who last year accused the app of censoring political scruple. TikTok has denied the claim.
Facebook did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The statement did not mention pressures in the United Nations that ByteDance currently faces to sell off its popular short-video app TikTok.
U.S. President Donald Trump has agreed to swop China’s ByteDance 45 days to negotiate a sale of popular short-video app TikTok to Microsoft Corp, people in with the matter said on Sunday.
(Reporting by Brenda Goh, Engen Tham and Wang Jing; Editing by Edwina Gibbs)