A PR arm of the Chinese government inquired about starting a TikTok account to spread propaganda, report says

• A PR arm of the Chinese government inquired about opening a TikTok account that would push pro-China propaganda, Bloomberg reported.
• The account wouldn't have identified it as affiliated with China's government, the report said.

A public relations arm of the Chinese government inquired about opening a TikTok account that would push pro-China propaganda but wouldn't indicate it was associated with the government, according to a report published Friday by Bloomberg.

A spokesperson for TikTok did not return Insider's request for comment sent Friday but told Bloomberg: "We declined to offer support for this request, as we believed the creation of such an account would violate our Community Guidelines."

TikTok executives pushed back on the request, which was made in April 2020, according to the report.

The spokesperson noted the incident was a request from an employee's friend, Bloomberg reported. TikTok is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, though TikTok has routinely downplayed ByteDance's role in the operations of the app.

TikTok's community guidelines related to misinformation prohibit accounts that use "coordinated inauthentic behavior such as the use of multiple accounts to exert influence and sway public opinion while misleading individuals, our community, or our systems about the account's identity, location, relationships, popularity, or purpose."

TikTok has faced continued scrutiny by leaders in the United States due to its ownership. Former President Donald Trump during his last year in office attempted to ban the company from operating in the US or force a sale to a US company.

BuzzFeed News in June published a report citing audio recordings from TikTok meetings that said ByteDance workers in China had accessed US user data.

"We know we're among the most scrutinized platforms from a security standpoint, and we aim to remove any doubt about the security of US user data," the company told the outlet in response. "That's why we hire experts in their fields, continually work to validate our security standards, and bring in reputable, independent third parties to test our defenses."

Several former ByteDance employees also told BuzzFeed News in a report published Tuesday that the company's defunct news aggregator app, Top Buzz, pushed pro-China messages to people in the US. ByteDance denied the claims.

An FCC commissioner in June called on Apple and Google to remove the app from their respective app marketplaces. FCC commissioner Brendan Carr said in a letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook that TikTok "poses an unacceptable national security risk due to its extensive data harvesting combined with Beijing's apparently unchecked access to that sensitive data."

Carr said TikTok hadn't followed the companies' rules, citing a "pattern of conduct and misrepresentations regarding the unfettered access that persons in Beijing have to sensitive US user data," Insider previously reported.

Concerns about TikTok's ownership also exist outside the US. British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss earlier this week said she planned to scrutinize Chinese companies, such as TikTok's owner, if she becomes the nation's next prime minister.

"We absolutely should be cracking down on those types of companies," Truss said, according to Reuters.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian on Tuesday called Truss' comments "irresponsible," adding that "hyping up the so-called China threat, cannot solve one's own problems," Bloomberg reported.