TikTok’s Owner ByteDance Quietly Changed Its China Unit’s Name After U.S. Political Fears

Since The Information reported last year that the Chinese government had quietly taken a stake and a board seat in a key Chinese corporate entity of ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, politicians in the U.S. and elsewhere have fanned fears that the Chinese government holds dominion over TikTok too. ByteDance, which is headquartered in Beijing, has repeatedly said the China business is separate from ByteDance Ltd., an offshore entity that wholly owns TikTok, a viral video app that has more than 1 billion monthly active users.

That argument didn’t seem to make a difference in the eyes of ByteDance’s critics. So in May, in an effort to lessen the confusion between the China-based ByteDance entity and the offshore one, the company changed the China unit’s name from Beijing ByteDance Technology to Beijing Douyin Information Service, according to a person with direct knowledge of its internal discussions. Douyin is the name of ByteDance’s main moneymaker, a video app similar to TikTok but only available in mainland China.