1.) How Chinese companies interact with the CCP: they are 100% subservient with a CCP party member who can pull the CEO in at anytime and assign them tasks related to studying Xi thought and other party material, as well as demand the company do anything for the state.
2.) What great power competition looks like including economic warfare (tariffs, massive state subsidies to protect national defense, influence operations for allies, securing raw materials, reducing reliance on rivals, etc).
3.) How espionage in general works in support of political aims, and especially how each nation uses it to further their goals. For China, it's always been about vacuuming up as much data as possible, and then later on finding use cases for it. The disruption side of their practices are successful if they make chaos in an adversary that forces them to spend time on dealing with that instead of confronting them. Each nation acts in their own interest and are absolutely ruthless here in a way the average person rarely can comprehend.
4.) The free pass given to China related to tech and social media industries. American Social Media is banned in China[1]. Why do you think that is? There are many reports/cases of American intel/military use cases of social media to influence outcomes worldwide[2]. China wasn't going to allow this. But we are supposed to allow them access to us? We know this is the case because we would do the same in their position[3]. There's a reason it's banned in India[4].
5.) We know China influences the Douyin algorithm[5] locally to promote behaviors the government perceives as healthy or important to state interests. This often manifests in pushing more STEM related content and suppressing the ragebait content that flourishes in other nations[6].
Even if the leadership of Bytedance were 100% on board with not pushing CCP interests to the USA and world, there's no mechanism of protection or redress from them. The CCP can, and will, disappear high profile people at will with no repercussion, and replace you with someone who will listen. Any smart nation who wants to protect the minds of their citizens would do well to extremely regulate social media in their country.
In your case for "Americans upset over Israeli treatment of civilians". Assuming that the American outrage is 100% organic on it's own: It is in the best interest of China to amplify that outrage and make it seem stronger than it is for a variety of reasons:
A. This will have knock on effects for policy makers and their aides who are hyper-tuned in because if their constituents want something, voting for that is how B. Anything that disrupts American foreign policy and allies is an asset at weakening the grip the dollar has on international markets C. Israel is an extremely talented producer of technical people. If the relationship between the USA and Israel sours, then suddenly a pathway opens for China to get access to the incredible tech that Israel develops for various US programs. (This is also ignoring their incredibly advanced spyware capabilities in their private sector, which is morally repugnant, but it does exist).
[0] - https://arxiv.org/pdf/2209.07663 [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_websites_blocked_in_ma... [2] - https://web.archive.org/web/20160410083943/http://www.reddit... (look at the most addicted cities) [3] - https://theintercept.com/2022/12/20/twitter-dod-us-military-... [4] - https://apnews.com/article/tiktok-bytedance-ban-china-india-... [5] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0j0xzuh-6rY [6] - https://networkcontagion.us/reports/the-ccps-digital-charm-o... [7] - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jul/25/the-growing-li...