Facebook accused of smear campaign by TikTok owner

ByteDance, the owner of the troubled short video app TikTok, has accused Facebook of plagiarism and defamation amid pressure from the Trump administration to sell Tiktok to a US company under pressure of time. ByteDance made that comment in a statement posted on its official account regarding Jinri Toutiao, its news aggregator app. "We have always strived to become a global company, but we have faced all sorts of complex and unimaginable difficulties, including clashes and conflicts of different cultures, and plagiarism and defamation of competitor Facebook," said ByteDance. Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has criticized TikTok for censoring political protests. Facebook also launched Reel, an Instagream's Stories feature to share short-form video content similar to Tiktok. Facebook started testing reels with users in November 2019, initially in Brazil, and then rolled out it in France and Germany last month. Reel launches in 50 more countries in August, including the UK. Facebook will launch Reels in the US in early August. ByteDance released its statement before <a class="tvreplink" target="_blank" href="https://www.tradingview.com/chart/?symbol=Nasdaq%3AMSFT">Microsoft confirmed it was in talks to buy TikTok Donald Trump has overturned his opposition to Microsoft's acquisition of Tiktok's American business, but he said the U.S. Treasury Department should receive a significant percentage of the revenue from the sales. Trump had suggested Microsoft buy a 100 percent stake in the operation rather than part of the company. Trump has set September 15 as the deadline for the sale of TikTok's US business to Microsoft, and the US will shut down TikTok if sales fail in the country. Bytedance did not elaborate on the impending US ban or the possible sale of TikTok to Microsoft in its statement, but said that it would continue to pursue the globalization mission of increasing investment in the global market and adding value to global users create. The potential sale of TikTok in the US quickly spread and became a hot topic on China's social media Weibo. In many comments, ByteDance criticized the fact that it kneeled down in front of US pressure after news of the possible sale of TikTok to Microsoft.