TikTok Parent ByteDance Has Extensive Links to Chinese Military-Surveillance Complex

TikTok’s Chinese parent ByteDance is a key player in the Chinese Communist Party’s military-industrial-surveillance system, a new report says. Among its findings is that ByteDance co-founded a Chinese government-backed artificial-intelligence academy in 2018 and that it has partnered with several surveillance firms that have been placed under U.S. sanctions for their role in Beijing’s atrocities against Uyghurs.

Citing publicly available sources, the report also provides additional evidence linking ByteDance to the CCP’s paramilitary wing, hundreds of arrests in China made possible by the China-only version of TikTok, and the party’s opaque united-front political-influence system.

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Jimmy Quinn

Jimmy Quinn is the former national security correspondent for National Review.

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TikTok’s Chinese parent ByteDance is a key player in the Chinese Communist Party’s military-industrial-surveillance system, a new report says. Among its findings is that ByteDance co-founded a Chinese government-backed artificial-intelligence academy in 2018 and that it has partnered with several surveillance firms that have been placed under U.S. sanctions for their role in Beijing’s atrocities against Uyghurs.

Citing publicly available sources, the report also provides additional evidence linking ByteDance to the CCP’s paramilitary wing, hundreds of arrests in China made possible by the China-only version of TikTok, and the party’s opaque united-front political-influence system.