‘TikTok owner must take business chat app offline from Chinese government’

ByteDance, the company behind TikTok, has been ordered to take its business chat app Feishu offline from the Chinese government, according to Bloomberg sources. This is reportedly because users of the app were able to see messages from foreign platforms.

Sources tell Bloomberg that ByteDance will have to remove the app from Chinese app stores for a month. According to the financial news agency, this is a ‘punishment’ because foreign messages were accessible via a newsfeed function in the app. This concerns messages on platforms such as Twitter and Facebook. The sources want to remain anonymous because the decision has not been made public. ByteDance itself is refusing to comment, Bloomberg reports.

The company is said to have removed the newsfeed function from Feishu last month. This is said to have happened after Chinese regulators expressed concerns about the feature. The newsfeed was part of Feishu Workstation, which can be used to manage things like paychecks and leave payments. Despite the removal, the Chinese government is said to have taken action against the company.

Feishu is a so-called collaboration app, and offers similar functions as Slack and Microsoft Teams. Users can share files, chat and make video calls with Feishu. For users outside of China, the company has Lark. This app still works as it should, and is mainly aimed at users in Japan and Singapore. Alibaba, another Chinese firm, has a similar app called DingTalk, Bloomberg reports. ByteDance’s enterprise team working on Feishu currently consists of more than 1,700 employees. The company also plans to release an office suite.