TikTok says it took down a Chinese influence operation earlier this year

Dominant short-video platform TikTok said Thursday that it had taken down thousands of accounts that belonged to 15 covert influence operations in the first four months of this year, including the second-largest such network detected from China.

The company, which is under threat in the United States because of its Chinese ownership, said that in February it removed 16 accounts based in China that promoted the policies of the ruling Chinese Communist Party as well as Chinese culture. The network had 110,000 accounts following it, TikTok said. In the second quarter of last year, the company took down a different Chinese information operation that had 141,000 followers.