It is reported that ByteDance’s case of suing former intern Tian Keyu for tampering with code and attacking the company’s internal model training has been officially accepted by the People’s Court of Haidian District, Beijing. ByteDance requested the court to order Tian Keyu to compensate the company for infringement losses of 8 million yuan and reasonable expenses of 20,000 yuan, and to publicly apologize.
On November 5, ByteDance released the "Corporate Discipline and Professional Ethics Committee Notice" for all internal employees, disclosing the incident. The report stated that from June to July 2024, Tian Moumou, a former intern employee of the group's commercial products and technology department, was dissatisfied with the team's resource allocation and maliciously attacked the model training tasks of the team's research project by writing and tampering with codes, causing resource loss. The company has terminated the internship agreement with him, synchronized with the Sunshine Integrity Alliance and the Enterprise Anti-Fraud Alliance, and synchronized it with his school.
In October 2024, some media claimed that "the Byte large model training task was attacked by interns", and there was information posted online that "more than 8,000 cards were involved, and tens of millions of dollars were lost." Later, ByteDance issued a fact-clarification through its official account, saying that an intern had indeed committed a serious disciplinary violation. The intern involved had been fired by the company in August 2024, and his behavior was synchronized to his school and industry alliance. However, relevant reports also contained some exaggerations and inaccurate information.
According to the clarification announcement, the behavior involved maliciously interfered with the model training tasks of a research project of ByteDance's commercialization technology team. It did not affect the company's formal projects and online business, nor did it involve other businesses such as ByteDance's large model. It is said online that "more than 8,000 cards were involved and tens of millions of dollars were lost" is a serious exaggeration.
According to ByteDance insiders, since Tian Keyu was a Ph.D. student, the company fired him and handed him over to the school first. However, during the handling of the incident, Tian Keyu denied it many times, saying that he was not the one who attacked the model training task, but other interns, and even called the police to report that the rumor had been spread. Considering that Tian Keyu was completely unaware of the mistake and that the behavior involved had violated the company's safety red line, the company finally decided to file a lawsuit in court to show the company's serious attitude and prevent similar incidents from happening again.