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TikTok's new rule for workers: Will take away stock if you badmouth company
TikTok's rule for workers: The company offers restricted stock units (RSU) to employees- as a type of compensation.
Current and former staffers of TikTok should not badmouth the company, it has said as it would come at a huge cost. The company offers restricted stock units (RSU) to employees- as a type of compensation- but they can be taken away as per a provision in a TikTok shareholder agreement, Fortune reported. As per the agreement RSU holders have been barred from making "critical, adverse, or disparaging" comments about the company, its affiliates, or employees because if they do “all of the participant's restricted share units will be immediately forfeited.”
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As per the report, a former employee told Fortune that he thinks he's in the company's crosshairs. Quoting Patrick Spaulding Ryan the report said that TikTok didn't include him in its latest buyback offer for current and former employees on March 4 as he criticized the disparagement clause on LinkedIn.
This comes as former US president Donald Trump said that TikTok was a national security threat but also said a ban on the app would hurt some kids and strengthen Facebook, which he has also criticized. US lawmakers are set to vote on a bill that would give TikTok's Chinese owner ByteDance six months to divest the app which is used by almost 170 million Americans.
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“I'm not looking to make Facebook double the size. And if you if you ban TikTok, (then) Facebook and others, but mostly Facebook, will be a big beneficiary. And I think Facebook has been very dishonest,” Donald Trump said.
TikTok told US Congress that it is "not owned or controlled by the Chinese government" and said that “ironically, US user data could be less secure under a divestment scheme.”
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However, the 2024 Annual Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community released said “TikTok accounts run by a PRC propaganda arm reportedly targeted candidates from both political parties during the U.S. midterm election cycle in 2022.”
