TikTok Executive Repeatedly Refuses to Acknowledge Uyghur Genocide: ‘I’m Not Here to Be the Expert’

TikTok’s top U.S. lobbyist refused to acknowledge the Chinese Communist Party’s mass atrocities against Uyghurs and other minorities, when asked about the subject five times during an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper.

The TikTok executive, Michael Beckerman, a former congressional staffer, made the appearance with Tapper amid rising bipartisan concern in Washington about the company’s fealty to the Chinese government.

In recent weeks, over a dozen governors have issued orders banning the app from state employees’ government devices, and Congress has inserted a federal government device ban into the omnibus spending bill being debated this week. Congress is also considering a bipartisan proposal to ban TikTok from the U.S.

Tapper described TikTok’s censorship of content related to the topic of genocide and said that the company might be targeting conversation on the app about the Party’s detention camps in Xinjiang. He asked Beckerman, “do you acknowledge that the Chinese government has these Uyghurs and others in concentrations camps?”

In 2021, the State Department designated Beijing’s actions in Xinjiang as genocide and crimes against humanity, citing credible reports of mass detention, torture, rape, and a forced-sterilization program targeting ethnic minorities. Earlier this year, a report by the U.N.’s human-rights mechanism found that the abuses in Xinjiang might amount to crimes against humanity.

TikTok faced widespread criticism for censoring a teenager’s video regarding the Xinjiang atrocities in 2019, an incident which the company later claimed was the result of an error. Still, in 2021, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute found indications that TikTok had boosted the prominence of Xinjiang-related content backing Chinese government narratives, while videos addressing the human-rights abuses were lower on certain rankings within the app.

Beckerman dodged Tapper’s question, saying, “That’s not something that I focus on,” adding that TikTok does “not censor content on behalf of any government.”

Tapper then pressed Beckerman on why he won’t acknowledge the mass detention of Uyghurs.

“I’m just not an expert on what’s happening in China, so it’s not an area that I’m focusing on. But you can look on the app, and you’ll find plenty of content about that as well,” he responded.

Despite Beckerman’s claims of not knowing what’s happening in China, TikTok owner ByteDance has reportedly collaborated with the region’s police and the Ministry of Public Security to promote Chinese government propaganda about Xinjiang, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute found in 2019.

Tapper subsequently pointed out that “a viewer might see this and think this guy won’t even acknowledge that the Chinese are committing genocide against their own people” and that those viewers might think that Beckerman is afraid of being fired if he acknowledges Beijing’s atrocities.

“Jake, that’s not accurate, that’s not fair,” Beckerman replied. Tapper then pressed him again: “Do you disagree that’s how people are going to interpret it?”

“I can see that’s how you’re interpreting it,” Beckerman said. “Look, I think there are many human rights violations that are happening in China and around the world. I think these are very important. I’m not here to be the expert on human-rights violations around the world.” Then he said that anyone can learn about human-rights issues on TikTok, which he said doesn’t censor such content.

Tapper’s final question on the topic was whether TikTok would censor a video about the U.N.’s report finding possible crimes against humanity in in Xinjiang. “Go for it. I mean, that doesn’t violate our content guidelines,” Beckerman said.

“I can’t tell you if you did a video of that, Jake, that would go viral, that’s something that people would be interested in. But that doesn’t violate our guidelines at all.”

In addition to Beckermen, the ByteDance in-house lobbying team also counts as members other former Congressional staffers, including Michael Bloom, who worked for Nancy Pelosi, and Freddy Barnes, formerly with Kevin McCarthy’s office. ByteDance had spent just under $4 million on that team’s efforts in the first three quarters of 2022, according to mandatory public disclosures.

Former congressman Trent Lott also lobbies for ByteDance via Crossroads Strategies.

In addition to former lawmakers and congressional staffers, ByteDance has hired former intelligence community staffers for various roles.