SHANGHAI (Reuters) – TikTok owner ByteDance said it has faced “complex and unimaginable difficulties” in the process of working to become a global company, in a statement that also accused Facebook of committing “plagiarism and smears” against the Chinese firm.
The Beijing-based company made the comments in a statement posted on its official account on Jinri Toutiao, a news aggregator app it owns, late on Sunday. The statement also said the firm would continue to adhere to its globalisation vision.
Facebook did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The statement did not mention pressures in the United States that ByteDance currently faces to sell off its popular short-video app TikTok.
Reuters reported U.S. President Donald Trump has agreed to give China’s ByteDance 45 days to negotiate a sale of popular short-video app TikTok to Microsoft Corp.
(Reporting by Brenda Goh, Engen Tham and Wang Jing; Editing by Jacqueline Wong)
