TikTok’s parent company ByteDance has found that some of its employees improperly accessed the data of at least two US journalists covering the company.
The development comes after the Beijing-based tech firm concluded an internal investigation into the matter. Four employees, who were found to have accessed the data of journalists associated with BuzzFeed and Financial Times, were consequently fired by the company. The staffers had improperly obtained the journalists’ personal information to investigate the company leaks that made headlines earlier this year. An external law firm had been hired to probe the case, ByteDance revealed in internal emails Thursday.
“The individuals involved misused their authority to obtain access to TikTok user data,” TikTok CEO Shou Chew said to the employees. “This is unacceptable.”
The fired staffers were trying to establish connections between the journalists and other employees following the leaks, according to the emails being cited in the international news circuit. They obtained the journalists’ IP addresses to check if they were physically near any employees who were facing suspicions of leaking confidential information to the press. The journalists involved in the episode were based in the US and China. ByteDance claims it is taking additional measures to ensure data protection at the firm.
In response to the findings, Financial Times stated that “spying on reporters, interfering with their work or intimidating their sources is completely unacceptable. We’ll be investigating this story more fully before deciding our formal response”.
In October, Forbes published a report claiming TikTok was planning to track the location information of specific US users. The claims were strongly dismissed by TikTok.
“TikTok has never been used to ‘target’ any members of the U.S. government, activists, public figures or journalists, nor do we serve them a different content experience than other users,” TikTok said in a Twitter thread.
3/ TikTok has never been used to "target" any members of the U.S. government, activists, public figures or journalists, nor do we serve them a different content experience than other users.
— TikTokComms (@TikTokComms) October 20, 2022
TikTok is already facing intense regulatory scrutiny in the US, with lawmakers banning its use on government-issued devices in a number of states. There are also concerns about potential transfers of US user data to the Chinese government. TikTok has, however, repeatedly denied the reports, reiterating that the platform takes data protection seriously.
