Former ByteDance employee accuses TikTok of stealing content from Snapchat and Instagram

A former head of engineering for ByteDance's US operations, Yintao Yu, is taking the company to court over wrongful termination and has alleged that TikTok stole content from Snapchat and Instagram in order to boost engagement.

The allegations were filed in San Francisco Superior Court on Friday. Yu claims he was fired from his position because he raised concerns about ByteDance stealing and profiting from other companies' intellectual property to increase TikTok engagement and user numbers.

Yu also alleged that ByteDance had a special unit of Chinese Communist Party members, known as the "Committee", who guided the company on how to advance core Communist values. ByteDance denied the allegations, calling them "baseless".

TikTok has come under extensive scrutiny from US legislators in recent months due to concerns over Chinese Communist Party interference in its parent company and the risk of US users' personal data being shared with the Chinese government.