{"id":1784507,"date":"2022-12-22T20:18:38","date_gmt":"2022-12-23T01:18:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1784507"},"modified":"2022-12-22T20:18:41","modified_gmt":"2022-12-23T01:18:41","slug":"china-based-tiktok-employees-tracked-u-s-journalists-citizens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/china-based-tiktok-employees-tracked-u-s-journalists-citizens\/","title":{"rendered":"China-Based TikTok Employees Tracked U.S. Journalists, Citizens"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">14<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fchina-based-tiktok-employees-tracked-u-s-journalists-citizens%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1784507&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/topic\/communist-china\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">China<\/a>-based parent company of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/topic\/tiktok\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">TikTok<\/a> said Thursday that an internal investigation revealed employees obtained private data of four U.S.-based tech journalists and other American users\u2019 information.<\/p>\n<p>ByteDance, the Chinese tech giant that owns the video-sharing app, was accused earlier this year of tracking multiple reporters at Forbes under a covert surveillance campaign, which led to employees gaining access to information such as the IP addresses of some TikTok users connected to the reporters.<\/p>\n<p>Forbes <a href=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/emilybaker-white\/2022\/12\/22\/tiktok-tracks-forbes-journalists-bytedance\/?sh=51bf709f7da5\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">reported<\/a> that ByteDance\u2019s Internal Audit and Risk Control department was responsible for the alleged plan to monitor the locations of specific American citizens. The person who oversees that department is Beijing-based executive Song Ye, who reports to ByteDance co-founder and CEO Rubo Liang.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was deeply disappointed when I was notified of the situation \u2026 and I\u2019m sure you feel the same,\u201d Liang said in an internal email to employees shared with Forbes. \u201cThe public trust that we have spent huge efforts building is going to be significantly undermined by the misconduct of a few individuals \u2026 I believe this situation will serve as a lesson to us all.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The New York Times <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2022\/12\/22\/technology\/byte-dance-tik-tok-internal-investigation.html?smtyp=cur&#038;smid=tw-nytimes\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">reported<\/a>\u00a0that two employees responsible for obtaining the data were based in China, and two others were based in the United States.<\/p>\n<p>According to the NYT, the company has fired all four employees involved.<\/p>\n<p>ByteDance officials said the targeted reporters included Emily Baker-White, Katharine Schwab, and Richard Nieva \u2014 all three of whom wrote for BuzzFeed and are now at Forbes \u2014 and Cristina Criddle of the Financial Times.<\/p>\n<p>TikTok General Counsel Erich Andersen wrote in a second internal email shared with Forbes that internal audit groups investigating code of conduct violations are standard practices for companies.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHowever, in this case, individuals misused their authority to obtain access to TikTok user data,\u201d Andersen said.<\/p>\n<p>ByteDance and TikTok did not deny the surveillance, saying the app \u201chas never been used to \u2018target\u2019 any members of the U.S. government, activists, public figures or journalists\u201d and that \u201cTikTok could not monitor U.S. users in the way the article suggested.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Growing security concerns over the social media platform have caught lawmakers\u2019 attention recently after the Federal Communications Commission said the government agency could not regulate the social media app or control American data from flowing back to Beijing and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which requires companies to share its data upon request under the country\u2019s 2017 National Intelligence Law.<\/p>\n<p>Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) recently introduced bipartisan legislation prohibiting the video-sharing social media app from all consumer devices.<\/p>\n<p>In a statement about the internal investigation, Rubio told the NYT that \u201cno one should be surprised or fooled by ByteDance\u2019s public apology.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe company is desperate to tamp down growing bipartisan concerns about how it enables the Chinese Communist Party to use \u2014 and potentially weaponize \u2014 the data of American citizens,\u201d Rubio said. \u201cEvery day it becomes more clear that we need to ban TikTok.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>U.S. Senators unanimously passed the No TikTok on Government Devices Act, introduced by Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), last week.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTikTok is a Trojan Horse for the Chinese Communist Party. It\u2019s a major security risk to the United States, and until it is forced to sever ties with China completely, it has no place on government devices,\u201d Hawley said in a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hawley.senate.gov\/hawley-bill-ban-tiktok-government-devices-passes-senate-unanimously\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">statement<\/a> on Thursday. \u201cStates across the U.S. are banning TikTok on government devices. It\u2019s time for Joe Biden and the Democrats to help do the same.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Several states in the union have also passed laws prohibiting state employees from using the app on government-owned devices.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The China-based parent company of TikTok said Thursday that an internal investigation revealed employees obtained private data of four U.S.-based tech journalists and other American users\u2019 information. ByteDance, the Chinese tech giant that owns the video-sharing app, was accused earlier this year of tracking multiple reporters at Forbes under a covert surveillance campaign, which led &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":429,"featured_media":1784510,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[541],"tags":[6962,8329,4538,6202,5183,5313,6248,11314,7238,6195],"class_list":["post-1784507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-daily-wire","tag-the","tag-china-based","tag-citizens","tag-daily","tag-employees","tag-journalists","tag-tiktok","tag-tracked","tag-u-s","tag-wire"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1784507","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/429"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1784507"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1784507\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1784510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1784507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1784507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1784507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}