Police say they’ve arrested a suspect allegedly related to a number of on-line threats that led TikTok to evacuate its headquarters close to Los Angeles on Friday.
A press release from the Culver Metropolis Police Division says that TikTok staff reported receiving a number of threats, throughout numerous social media platforms, from 33-year-old Hawthorne resident Joseph Mayuyo. After a further message threatened TikTok’s Culver Metropolis headquarters, police say firm safety evacuated the workplace “out of an abundance of warning.”
Police then investigated Mayuyo’s residence, based on the press launch. Throughout the investigation, he allegedly posted extra threatening statements, together with one declaring that he wouldn’t be taken alive. Detectives obtained search and arrest warrants, and so they negotiated with Mayuyo for 90 minutes earlier than he voluntarily exited his residence and was taken into custody, the police division says.
Business Insider reports that one TikTok worker described the threats as “actually scary,” whereas one other was involved that they appeared to particularly goal the e-commerce division.
Mayuyo’s X account has reportedly been suspended for violating the platform’s hateful content material coverage. A Medium account underneath his identify printed a submit in July criticizing TikTokShop USA as a “rip-off.”
TechCrunch has reached out to TikTok for remark. Within the press launch, the police division praises TikTok’s safety crew “for his or her fast motion, collaboration, and professionalism all through this case.”
This arrest comes as TikTok’s U.S. operations are being spun out from Chinese language proprietor ByteDance as a brand new three way partnership with a brand new board of administrators. President Donald Trump, who has been speaking and posting concerning the deal for a lot of months, lately signed an govt order approving the sale.
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