ByteDance, the Chinese owner of popular video-sharing platform TikTok, refuted a media report claiming it was selling TikTok’s artificial intelligence (AI) technology to other companies.
“BytePlus is a [software as a service] provider, and we accordingly offer clients our services. We neither provide, nor sell, any technology from TikTok or any other client,” ByteDance said in a statement on Monday.
The comment followed a Financial Times (FT) report on Sunday, saying that ByteDance was selling some of the AI technology that powers TikTok to websites and apps outside China, as it broadens its revenue streams ahead of a long-anticipated IPO.
As a new division, BytePlus was quietly launched in June, the FT report said. According to its official website, it has listed customers all over the world, including in the US, such as fashion app Goat. TikTok is also among its clients.
TikTok and its Chinese sister app Douyin use their edge-cutting algorithms to keep users scrolling by recommending videos that the software thinks they would like.
Photo taken on Aug. 21, 2020 shows a logo of the video-sharing social networking company TikTok’s Los Angeles Office in Culver City, Los Angeles County, the United States. (Xinhua)
In August 2020, China launched new rules for exports of certain technologies, including AI-powered algorithm, a move that was widely interpreted as blocking ByteDance’s sale of TikTok’s US operations to a US frim, since such a deal would need China’s approval.
The Chinese start-up was ordered by former US president Donald Trump to sell TikTok in the US citing security concerns over the personal data it handles.
Responding to new regulations, ByteDance said that it would “strictly follow” the new rules in “handling operations related to the export of technologies.”
The Beijing office of China’s internet giant ByteDance, parent company of TikTok Photo: VCG
