From The Verge: An internal investigation at TikTok parent company ByteDance found that several employees accessed the TikTok data of at least two US journalists and a “small number” of other people connected to them, according to internal emails obtained by The Verge that were first reported by The New York Times. The accessed data includes the reporters’ IP addresses, which were used to see if they had been physically near TikTok employees who were suspected of leaking information to the press.
In an email to employees, the CEO of Beijing-based ByteDance, Rubo Liang, said he was “deeply disappointed” and that “the public trust that we have spent huge efforts building is going to be significantly undermined by the misconduct of a few individuals.” In another internal email, TikTok’s CEO who reports to Liang, Shou Chew, referred to the incident as “the poorly conceived acts of a few people.” And in a third email, TikTok general counsel Erich Andersen said the company’s Internet Audit and Risk team is being restructured in response. You can read all three memos in full at the bottom of this story.
The revelation comes as US lawmakers make moves to restrict TikTok over national security concerns, including banning it from government phones. It also shows ByteDance walking back denials that TikTok has never been used to “target” journalists.
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