In the US, ByteDance is facing a January 19 deadline to divest its TikTok stake to an approved buyer or shut down, following a law passed by Congress in April. The US government has labeled TikTok a national security threat, expressing concerns about ByteDance potentially handing over sensitive data on its US users to the Chinese Communist Party. However, President-elect Donald Trump has indicated he would try to save the app once in office.
Key takeaways:
- ByteDance, the owner of TikTok, has sued a former intern for $1.1 million, accusing him of sabotaging an AI model training project by tampering with the code.
- The lawsuit was filed in a Beijing district court and ByteDance is also seeking a public apology from the ex-intern, Tian Keyu.
- ByteDance operates Doubao, a chatbot similar to OpenAI's ChatGPT, and has denied reports that the intern caused damage to about 8,000 GPUs, leading to losses of millions of dollars.
- In the US, ByteDance is facing a deadline to divest its TikTok stake to an approved buyer or shut down due to national security concerns, with some officials worried about the potential for sensitive user data to be handed over to the Chinese Communist Party.