TikTok admits to tracking USA journalists' data

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/12/22/tech/tiktok-bytedance-journalist-data/index.html

But they say the employees acted without authorization...

And I don't know who would be stupid enough to believe them...

This is fine. Let's encourage our kids to get on more Chinese owned platforms.

It's a platform for degenerates. I'm sad to see my sisters kids obsessed with it. They are so socially inept it's amazing how it just seems to zombify people.

It's not Tiktok that was tracking journalists. It was Bytedance employees that accessed Tiktok user data and used that to track journalists.

Now the argument of why Tiktok should be logging user IPs in a user profile is another issue. And that is an issue with any site or service that has user logins. You can bet any time you sign in or access anything your IP is being logged. Every time you see an ad your IP is being logged, and if that ad is served by MS or Amazon or Google/Alphabet and you are signed in on those accounts, your user account is being associated with that.

It's a good argument for using VPNs. But likely a VPN logs and sells data on your habits.

Onion over VPN might be worth looking into if you are concerned about privacy. Most people are not diligent and only expect privacy and feel entitled to it but then turn around and use all kinds of services without regard to that.

I don't care about tracking data. Everyone does. I care that this horrid application is infecting people, turning them into mindless drones who stare at their phones constantly. It's almost as dangerous as this MAGA idiocy.

@girlusocrazy: and who represents tiktok if not byte dance employees working on behalf of the company only to be thrown under the bus when discovered?

@nirgal: The discovery was made by a global internal compliance investigation led by an external law firm.

CNN didn’t bother to report that part of the story and this changes how readers perceive the story.

If anything, it shows that TikTok is open and transparent and willing to make public its internal non-compliance issues.

all of these social media platforms are tracking very very deep and barely skirt by on privacy laws. Its not even a secret. You will be shocked to hear how much platforms like facebook, instagram etc knows about you, and they sell out your data to advertisers on the daily basis. This is very well known, open knowledge.

Is that so? Perhaps you prefer Forbes?

“It is standard practice for companies to have an internal audit group authorized to investigate code of conduct violations,” TikTok General Counsel Erich Andersen wrote in a second internal email shared with Forbes. “However, in this case individuals misused their authority to obtain access to TikTok user data.”

Forbesfirst reported the surveillance tactics, which were overseen by a China-based team at ByteDance, in October. Asked for comment on that story, ByteDance and TikTok did not deny the surveillance, but took to Twitter after the story was published to say that “TikTok has never been used to ‘target’ any members of the U.S. government, activists, public figures or journalists,” and that “TikTok could not monitor U.S. users in the way the article suggested.” In the internal email, Liang acknowledged that TikTok had been used in exactly this way, as Forbes had reported.

The investigation, internally known as Project Raven, began this summer after BuzzFeed News published a story revealing that China-based ByteDance employees had repeatedly accessed U.S. user data, based on more than 80 hours of audio recordings of internal TikTok meetings. According to internal ByteDance documents reviewed byForbes, Project Raven involved the company’s Chief Security and Privacy Office, was known to TikTok’s Head of Global Legal Compliance, and was approved by ByteDance employees in China. It tracked Emily Baker-White, Katharine Schwab and Richard Nieva, three Forbes journalists that formerly worked at BuzzFeed News.

We see this type of stuff all the time. Facebook and Uber previously got caught tracking journalists and politicians. McKinsey got caught proposing programs to intentionally addict and kill people with opioids. They always feign shock that such actions occurred and claim that it was the result of rogue 'individuals', totally unknown to executives.

Like Joe Schmoe who's working 40 hour weeks as a system administrator is going to track journalists on his own without direction, LOL. What is he even going to do with the information?

Come on, man,

It's even a century-old movie trope.

@blaznwiipspman1: but do those companies work directly for an authoritarian hostile government likely to start a war soon in east Asia?

The same government that prevents free speech in all social media in their own country as well as competition from foreign platforms...

@kadin_kai: are we supposed to believe that a couple of non influencial employees started investigating journalist without any directions from management...

https://www.engadget.com/us-house-of-representatives-bans-tik-tok-070722060.html

TikTok is now banned on any device owned and managed by the US House of Representatives, according toReuters. The House's Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) reportedly told all lawmakers and their staff in an email that they must delete the app from their devices, because it's considered "high risk due to a number of security issues." Everyone detected to have the social networking application on their phones would be contacted to make sure it's deleted, and any future downloads are prohibited.

We could at least make it slightly difficult for people to steal our info but its too late literally everyone under the age of 25 has tiktok on their phone.

@nirgal: I'm not a fan of China, but banning their companies is a slippery slope to more communism than we already have. As if patents, trademarks and IP weren't commie enough, now youre banning companies because you cant compete. Banning huawei was a disgrace, and now theyre talking about banning tiktok. Its just nonsense. I don't use tiktok though, it's useless and highly addictive. It's a waste of time.

Also, I'm not really interested in Taiwan or china's obsession with them. Actually I'm against Taiwan. The tsmc is a giant scam and has very little competition world wide. They're the reason for our very expensive Chips recently and personally I'm glad we're building manufacturing plants stateside instead.

@blaznwiipspman1: it's a situation which no social media has access to their market but they have access to all other markets.

If you want to protect free speech they can simply be demonetized, but you cant allow this degree of market unbalance.

And the reason you don't care about the Chinese system expanding is because you haven't lived under it .

And I don't see why you would be against Taiwan simply because of tsmc they are simply one company, not the entire country.

people dont like facts anymore....

@nirgal: Have you got any evidence to prove otherwise or is it your personal bias?

Moreover, Bytedance was not required to disclose anything.

The fact that they hired an external law firm to work with an internal compliance team to investigate shows transparency.

Or are you also claiming the law firm is also lying to the world?

@kadin_kai: it's simply logic ，researching the journalist was to protect byte dance interests, not to benefit the employees personally.

Hiring the external compliance team looks like a pr stunt that backfired frankly.

I don't even know how or why TikTok took off with kids when there was already YouTube.

@nirgal: So show me the evidence that the employees was doing something to protect Bytedance?

Why would it be a PR stunt when the investigation was internal? They could have covered it up and said nothing!

Your logic is illogical.

Also get your facts straight! The global compliance team is a part of Bytedance. Every major company has an internal compliance and internal audit department. They were not hired.

Obviously you’ve never worked at a large company!

Bytedance employed an external law firm!

Get your facts straight!