An inquiry into TikTok’s Chinese parent company ByteDance found that employees of the company obtained the private user data of two U.S. journalists. The startling admission is part of larger revelations on how the Chinese company spies on Americans, Breitbart reports.
On Thursday, ByteDance admitted that its employees had obtained data on a number of U.S. TikTok users, two of whom are reporters, according to a report by the New York Times.
ByteDance staffers on a team reportedly tasked with monitoring employee conduct obtained access to the IP addresses and other data of two U.S. journalists — as well as some people connected to the reporters via their TikTok accounts — in an attempt to figure out who at the Chinese company had been leaking information to journalists.
The ByteDance employees who gained access to the IP addresses and other data were trying to find out if those individuals were in the same physical proximity of ByteDance employees, the company said. The investigation into ByteDance, which was conducted by an outside law firm, had started after it was revealed in October — via documents obtained by Forbes — that the Chinese company had planned to use TikTok to monitor the physical location of specific American citizens.
The journalists targeted by employees of the company owned by a hostile foreign country wrote for BuzzFeed and Financial Times, ByteDance said, but refused to disclose the identity of the reporters.
