“We are not a Chinese company, we are not pressured in any way by Chinese authorities regarding data or content moderation,” said a spokesperson for TikTok Europe. Faced with threats of a ban in some quarters, TikTok is trying to convince European executives that user data cannot find its way to Beijing. But it will be difficult, because the ties with Chinese PR are strong.

“We are not a Chinese company”

There are several things TikTok has been criticized for, most of them related to the fact that the Chinese government was able to obtain user data from the US or Europe. Some institutions have banned employees from having the app on their work phones, and the French Senate opened a commission to investigate TikTok’s ties to China. In the USA, the greatest pressure and discussions continue 3-4 years ago.

• TikTok announces the opening of data centers in Ireland and Norway

“The relationship between TikTok and ByteDance is similar to the relationship between YouTube and Google. ByteDance is the parent company, we say it’s a global company, I know some call it a Chinese company. 60% of ByteDance shares are owned by global investors such as KKR or Sequoia, investors who also own shares in other technology companies with which we compete. 20% of the shares are owned by the employees and another 20% are owned by the founders of the company,” explained Theo Bertram, Vice President of Government Relations at TikTok Europe.

In Europe, TikTok has 20 million users each in France and Germany, 19 million in the UK and 17 million in Italy, according to statista.com, the four biggest markets in the EU.

“ByteDance is not a Chinese company, it is registered (the Anglo-Saxon term “incorporated”, note a) in the Cayman Islands, and TikTok has many entities in Europe. The board of directors of ByteDance, and I want to talk about this because it is falsely said that it also has a member of the Chinese Communist Party, consists of four executives from the largest investors. The board also includes a CEO who is Chinese but lives in Singapore and is not a party member. Therefore, we consider ourselves an international company in terms of structure and shareholding,” says the company’s representative.

• TikTok admits that employees of the company accessed the accounts of some journalists to find out information about their sources

TikTok is special in many ways, but it is completely unusual because it has become fantastically successful among young people, with an average age of users much lower than Facebook. Unlike other big social networks or other tech companies, TikTok was NOT created in Silicon Valley, but in China.

The headquarters is in China, and one thing is clear: ties with China cannot be severed. However, TikTok representatives want to show that they are limiting ties with teams in China as much as possible.

Demarcation with China is difficult

TikTok hires engineers outside of China, and the development teams for TikTok and the Chinese version are completely different.

Theo Bertram says there is NO WAY the Chinese authorities can get the data of TikTok users in Europe, and TikTok says it would absolutely refuse if such requests were made. The company says that Chinese authorities do not pressure either data access or content moderation. “We are an independent global company.”

• TikTok and Romanians, some statistics about the program that has grown the most in recent years

TikTok officials say the app collects less personal data than other tech apps.

TikTok announced the opening of two more data centers (in Ireland and Norway).

TikTok will announce the name of a partner that will monitor how the app handles data in Europe, following the US model, where there is serious talk of banning TikTok or forcing ByteDance to sell its US operations to an American company. Both options seem extremely unlikely.

To continue operating in the U.S., TikTok has proposed a $1.5 billion plan called Project Texas to store the data of American users on Oracle Corp’s systems in Texas. Oracle will also monitor TikTok’s video recommendation systems.

The plan for Europe is called Project Clover.

According to statista.com as of January 2023, TikTok has over one billion users worldwide, with 113 million in the US and 109 million in Indonesia. There are 82 million users in Brazil, 57 million in Mexico, and 54 million in Russia. Three more countries have more than 40 million users: Vietnam, the Philippines, and Thailand.

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