beijing a chinese government entity responsible for public relations attempted to open a stealth account on tiktok targeting western audiences with propaganda according to internal messages seen by bloombergthe attempt which met with pushback from tiktok executives highlights the internal tensions within the fastgrowing social media app owned by beijingbased bytedance inc which has constantly attempted to distance itself from chinese state influencein an april 2020 message addressed to elizabeth kanter tiktoks head of government relations for the uk ireland netherlands and israel a colleague flagged a chinese government entity thats interested in joining tiktok but would not want to be openly seen as a government account as the main purpose is for promoting content that showcase the best side of china some sort of propagandathe messages indicate that some of bytedances most senior government relations team including kanter and usbased erich andersen global head of corporate affairs and general counsel discussed the matter internally but pushed back on the request which they described as sensitive tiktok used the incident to spark an internal discussion about other sensitive requests the messages statewe declined to offer support for this request as we believed the creation of such an account would violate our community guidelines said a tiktok spokeswoman who downplayed the incident as an informal request from a friend of an employeetiktok has rules against coordinated inauthentic behavior where accounts conceal their true identity to exert influence or sway public opinion and against political advertising the spokeswoman said tiktok does allow some chinese government entities including the chinese embassy in the us to have verified accounts the company is planning to expand its statecontrolled media policy which labels staterun accounts in the coming months to include other government entities the spokeswoman added kanter and andersen declined to comment the chinese government did not respond to a request for comment the messages have emerged in the same week that uk foreign secretary liz truss pledged to crack down on chineseowned companies including tiktok during a headtohead debate with rishi sunak as part of their campaign to succeed boris johnson as prime ministerchinese foreign ministry spokesman zhao lijian criticized the remarks made by truss on mondayi want to make it clear to certain british politicians that making irresponsible remarks about china including hyping up the socalled china threat cannot solve ones own problems zhao said during a regular news briefing in beijing on tuesdaythe extent to which the chinese government exerts influence over bytedance has been a source of tension for tiktok as it has expanded internationally in september 2020 the trump administration accused tiktok of being a mouthpiece for the communist party as part of an ultimately push to shut down the app in the us if it wouldnt sell to an american owner the same month the australian strategic policy institute said in a report that tiktok often buries or hides words reflecting political movements including criticism of vladimir putin as well as hashtags relating to gender and sexual orientation or