TikTok’s Chinese parent admits to spying on US journalists

The findings come at a difficult time for Byte Dance, which is trying to boost its reputation in the US to avoid a legal ban on TikTok. The US Congress (as well as members of the European Parliament) fear that the Chinese company will or will eventually pass consumer data to the government in Beijing.

The close relationship between the Bait Dance and the Chinese government was a prominent topic in the spies’ publications ForbesJournalists. They learned this fall that more than 300 employees affiliated with the company were previously employed by Chinese state media. They also found that another now-defunct Byte Dance app censored sensitive information from Beijing and pushed pro-government documents.

‘Personal misconduct’

Staff try to check if journalists are staying away from those who worked on Byte Dance or Tik Tok. Even if they had obtained the reporters’ IP addresses, the effort would have been unsuccessful, according to internal e-mail correspondence.

Byte Dance fires employees and says there’s been an incident. “The public trust we have built through great efforts will be significantly undermined by the misconduct of a few individuals,” CEO Rubo Liang wrote in an internal email, “deeply disappointed.” Forbes And The New York Times.

When asked about the connection between ByteDance and TikTok, Theo Bertram, vice president of government relations and public policy for TikTok in Europe, emphasized. D Volkskrant A sharp separation between the two recently: “We actually operate separately from China. There is not a Chinese parent company with two apps, but two companies: TikTok and Bytedance.

privacy

Disclosure Forbes Not standing out though. So he wrote Buzz feed Chinese employees still had access to US users’ data last summer. The situation in Europe is even different: TikTok adjusted its privacy terms this month, which now explicitly states that Chinese employees can also access data from European users. Many MEPs are very concerned about this and want the European Commission to intervene.