(Yicai) April 29 -- China’s technology firms are cracking down on corruption, with TikTok owner ByteDance the most recent to reveal related employee dismissals.

ByteDance recently sacked 61 staff on suspicion of committing crimes, as well as violating rules on honesty and integrity, conflict of interest, and information security, according to an internal company bulletin.

The public security organs had already filed cases against four former ByteDance staff on suspicion of criminal offenses, the bulletin said. One ex-employee who worked at Douyin, TikTok’s sister app, had accepted bribes for “doing favors” between December 2022 and last May. Another had taken bribes of CNY40,000 (USD5,520).

Beijing-based ByteDance and other Chinese tech companies have been cracking down on corruption in recent years.

Tencent Holdings, which owns WeChat, disclosed over 70 cases of staff rule-breaking last year, leading to over 120 dismissals, with almost 20 handed over to the public security organs for further investigation. One who worked in Tencent’s animation and comics division was put on its employment blacklist for life for taking bribes.

Life services platform Meituan announced this February that it would carry on with its crackdown on corruption in the procurement of goods and services, and in areas of commercial cooperation.

The businesses are not just targeting individual corruption cases, Jiang Xianliang, a senior partner at law firm Yinghe, told Yicai. They are looking at the reasons behind the internal corruption and developing broader strategies to deal with it, he said.

Editors: Liao Shumin, Tom Litting