BEIJING - The Chinese entrepreneur behind TikTok took ample precautions when he set out to straddle the tech world's most treacherous divide: the one separating China's tightly controlled internet from the rest of the planet.
But TikTok ended up resonating with American teenagers when even a platform for short viral videos is subject to political scrutiny. "If you want to go out and tackle more difficult markets, sure, but obviously there's consequences and additional costs," Mr Tang said."Going forward, Chinese entrepreneurs in these tech companies should be aware of that."
Facebook is rolling out a TikTok-like feature called Reels on Instagram, which it owns. Chief executive Mark Zuckerberg has also argued that undermining American tech companies with excess regulation could allow Chinese rivals to export their own, very different values to the world. Facebook declined to comment on ByteDance's statement.
"I can't accurately decide whether something is good or bad, highbrow or lowbrow," he told Chinese business magazine Caijing in 2016. Mr Zhang said he had studied another Chinese company's rapid growth overseas to see how it could be done.His choice was prescient in hindsight, though perhaps not in the way he intended. The Trump administration has for years sought to undermine the giant Chinese maker of telecommunications equipment and smartphones. It, too, has been called a national security threat by White House officials, who fear the Chinese government could use Huawei gear for espionage.
As TikTok became a smash hit in the United States, concerns arose about whether the app was censoring content that might offend Beijing. In May, Ms Liu Zhen, who had been overseeing ByteDance's global expansion, left the company. Mr Alex Zhu, a founder of Musical.ly, was replaced as TikTok's head by Mr Kevin Mayer, a veteran Disney executive in the United States.
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