Forbes magazine journalists and other US users were illegally spied on by employees of ByteDance, TikTok's parent company, after working on investigations that revealed the social network's links to China.
According to data from an internal ByteDance investigation, reviewed by Forbes, the company used a spy tactic in which it was able to access IP addresses to verify that the journalists — and people close to them — had been in the same place as company employees who would have leaked information.
The surveillance was done on Emily Baker-White, Katharine Schwab and Richard Nieva, three Forbes journalists who previously worked at the BuzzFeed News website, and people close to them, according to the outlet.
The Federal Telecommunications Commission is asking the government to withdraw the app for national security.Getty Images
The surveillance project known as
Raven
began after Baker-White published a story on Buzzfeed News in October describing how ByteDance employees had repeatedly accessed US user data.
The article was based on more than 80 hours of audio recordings of internal TikTok meetings.
According to Forbes, Erich Andersen, TikTok's general counsel, ByteDance discovered that several of its employees were obtaining data from "a former BuzzFeed reporter and a former Financial Times reporter," as well as a "small number of people related to the reporters." " through their TikTok accounts.
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After the strategy became known, ByteDance fired four employees involved, including Chris Lepitak, its chief internal auditor.
Two of the laid off employees worked in China and two in the United States.
"I was deeply disappointed when I was notified of the situation...and I'm sure you feel the same way," ByteDance manager Rubo Liang wrote in an internal email shared with Forbes.
The internal audit was conducted by the law firm Covington & Burling, which has represented TikTok in litigation against the US government.
A problem that worries the Government
Concerns about the social network's data collection have been raised by the Biden Administration, Congress, and former President Trump.
Recently, the director of the FBI, Chris Wray, stated that control of the video application is in the hands of the Chinese government "which does not share our values."
In 2020, the Donald Trump Administration threatened to ban TikTok within the United States and pressured the ByteDance company to sell the social network to an American company.
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According to the FBI, US officials at all government agencies and TikTok are in talks for a deal that would resolve security concerns.
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In September, at a Senate hearing, the social network's chief operating officer, Vanessa Pappas, asserted that the company has never shared user data.
Republican Senator Marco Rubio, who is a member of the Intelligence Committee, introduced a bill, which has Democratic support, that intends to ban TikTok, however, the bill is expected to face First Amendment issues, which talks about freedom of expression. .
According to The New York Times, Congress will vote this week on a proposal that would prohibit the use of TikTok on federal government devices, the measure is already applied by some states.
