TikTok took a jab at Facebook for launching “copycat” apps in a blog post about “fair competition” and transparency hours before Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was set to speak before Congress.
TikTok has faced increased scrutiny for its ties to China, mainly surrounding how it handles people’s private data. On Wednesday, TikTok, which is owned by Bytedance, said it embraces the challenge of user privacy, while also calling on other social networking sites to disclose what they do with users’ information.
“We believe all companies should disclose their algorithms, moderation policies, and data flows to regulators,” TikTok CEO Kevin Mayer said in the blog post.
The platform called out Facebook for trying to copy its formula. In 2018, Facebook quietly launched Lasso, which let users shoot 15-second videos and overlay popular songs. It later shut down the app.
A few weeks ago, Facebook unveiled plans to launch Reels, another TikTok-like video platform for Instagram that allows users to create interactive short clips set to music.
“To those who wish to launch competitive products, we say, bring it on,” TikTok said. “Facebook is even launching another copycat product, Reels (tied to Instagram), after their other copycat Lasso failed quickly.”
TikTok then went after Zuckerberg, who previously called TikTok a threat to democracy in America.
“Let’s focus our energies on fair and open competition in service of our consumers, rather than maligning attacks by our competitor – namely Facebook – disguised as patriotism and designed to put an end to our very presence in the US,” TikTok said.
The post came hours ahead of Big Tech’s hearing before Congress, where Zuckerberg is expected to answer questions surrounding antitrust matters and Facebook’s social media dominance. Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Tim Cook of Apple and Sundar Pichai of Google parent Alphabet were also expected to speak to lawmakers.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration and other government officials have questioned whether TikTok has a place in the U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said this month that the administration was looking into a possible ban of TikTok.
