Leak: TikTok tracked journalists and politicians

Leak: TikTok tracked journalists and politicians

Source: (https://bit.ly/3jzkdiQ)
Video sharing platform TikTok and its parent company Bytedance
are leakier than a sieve - and it has emerged that in an attempt to
plug the holes, members of Bytedance's internal audit team tracked
the physical location of journalists via their IP addresses.
The idea was to check the journalists' proximity, through their
TikTok accounts, to Bytedance staffers who could be feeding them
information. Nothing came of the invasion of privacy.
Writers at the Financial Times, Forbes and a number of people close
to them were targeted. Both outlets have published articles critical
of TikTok based on leaked information - ranging from the firing
of an exec for saying he "didn't believe" in maternity leave to
TikTok's ties to China and the Chinese Communist Party.
TikTok spokesperson Hilary McQuaide appears to have confirmed
the abuse, telling Forbes: "The misconduct of certain individuals,
who are no longer employed at ByteDance, was an egregious misuse
of their authority to obtain access to user data. This misbehavior
is unacceptable, and not in line with our efforts across TikTok
to earn the trust of our users."
Among those let go were chief internal auditor Chris Lepitak, his
boss China-based exec Song Ye, and two others.
More leaked material further confirmed the scandal. Bytedance CEO
Rubo Liang said in an internal email: "I was deeply disappointed
when I was notified of the situation and I'm sure you feel the same.
The public trust that we have spent huge efforts building is going
to be significantly undermined by the misconduct of a few
individuals I believe this situation will serve as a lesson
to us all."
"It is standard practice for companies to have an internal audit
group authorized to investigate code of conduct violations," TikTok
General Counsel Erich Andersen wrote in another leaked email.
"However, in this case individuals misused their authority to obtain
access to TikTok user data."
What sparked the surveillance campaign was an article by Forbes that
said Bytedance planned to use TikTok to monitor the location
of specific American citizens. The companies did not deny the claims
but posted on Twitter that "TikTok has never been used to 'target'
any members of the US government, activists, public figures
or journalists," and that "TikTok could not monitor US users in the
way the article suggested." However, Forbes said CEO Liang's
internal email acknowledged TikTok had been used in exactly
this way.
TikTok is in the process of migrating its data to Oracle cloud
servers due to national security concerns from the United States
government. However, staff told the New York Times that the
rogue employees had accessed historical data. This data is supposed
to be deleted once migration is complete.
The snooping bombshell comes amid a rising backlash against TikTok
from US officials. A number of states and government organizations
have banned personnel from installing the app on government-issued
devices - with good reason, if these revelations are anything
to go by.
A Bytedance spokesperson told us: "ByteDance condemns this
misguided plan that seriously violated the company's Code of Conduct.
We have taken disciplinary measures and none of the individuals
found to have directly participated in or overseen the misguided
plan remain employed at ByteDance."