TikTok ‘Will’ Spy on US Citizens — Say Sources
TikTok parent ByteDance is planning to track the location of certain targeted individuals on U.S. soil. A specialist Chinese team is already assigned to the task, we’re told.
All this is according to leaked “materials” reviewed by seasoned journalist Emily Baker-White, who has a bit of a habit of scoops that embarrass TikTok. But in this case, details are pretty thin on the ground—to put it mildly. And TikTok PR is spitting feathers, natch.
It’s not the first allegation that TikTok is up to no good. In today’s SB Blogwatch, we doubt it’s the last.
Your humble blogwatcher curated these bloggy bits for your entertainment. Not to mention: The elephant in the room.
For You Plague
What’s the craic? Emily Baker-White and Richard Nieva report—“ByteDance Planned To Use TikTok To Monitor The Physical Location Of Specific American Citizens”:
“TikTok did not respond to questions”
The project, assigned to a Beijing-led team, would have involved accessing location data from some U.S. users’ devices without their knowledge. … ByteDance’s Internal Audit and Risk Control department is led by Beijing-based executive Song Ye, who reports to ByteDance cofounder and CEO Rubo Liang. The team primarily conducts investigations into potential misconduct by … employees. But in at least two cases, [it] planned to collect … the location of a U.S. citizen who had never had an employment relationship with the company.
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TikTok spokesperson Maureen Shanahan said that TikTok collects approximate location information based on users’ IP addresses. … ByteDance’s Internal Audit team was planning to use this location information to surveil individual American citizens. … In July, the Senate Intelligence Committee began an investigation into whether TikTok misled lawmakers by withholding information about China-based employees’ access to U.S. data.
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ByteDance is not the first tech giant to have considered using an app to monitor specific U.S. users. In 2017, the New York Times reported that Uber had identified various local politicians and regulators and served them a separate, misleading version of the Uber app. … Both Uber and Facebook also reportedly tracked the location of journalists reporting on their apps. … TikTok did not respond to questions about whether it has ever served different content or experiences to government officials, regulators, activists or journalists than [to] the general public.
Are we implying an implication? Travis Clark cuts to the chase—“The report is sure to raise more privacy and national-security concerns over TikTok”:
“Potential national-security risk”
[Baker-White] did not specify the nature or purpose of the planned monitoring in order to protect [her] sources, and it’s unclear … whether the data was actually collected. … TikTok is often at the center of privacy and security debates, and Forbes’ report is sure to raise more eyebrows.
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[This] is the latest in a series of reported scandals for TikTok. [For example] in June, based on leaked audio … that US user data had been regularly accessed by China-based ByteDance engineers. … The Biden White House proposed new rules earlier this year that would give the US government more oversight over apps that could be potential national-security risks, such as TikTok.
But wait! There’s more. Mitchell Clark and Jay Peters add—“TikTok fires back”:
“That’s not an absolute denial”
TikTok accused [Baker-White] of leaving off a vital part of its statement, which says that “TikTok does not collect precise GPS location information from US users.” [Her] article says that TikTok and ByteDance didn’t answer questions about whether the internal audit team had ever targeted US politicians, activists, public figures, or journalists, and compared the alleged plan to Uber’s “greyball” program that targeted specific users.
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TikTok says the app has “never been used to ‘target’” anyone in those groups and that it doesn’t change the in-app experience for those people. (It’s worth noting that’s not an absolute denial of any consideration for specific targeting or that a request was ever made.)
Best response to TikTok PR’s Twitter thread? I vote this, from @rezziesatdorsia:
“Yes or no?”
Your response is bull****. Precise GPS wouldn’t be needed to, for example, track a journalist. … It’s what you didn’t say that matters. You didn’t deny the allegation.
Did TikTok use location data, approximate or not, in a use-case other than to enhance the ads or product experience, identify fraud or platform abuse, or to investigate suspected abuse by a current or former employee?
Yes or no? It’s a simple question.
Who could possibly have seen this coming? ViceCitySage is far from surprised:
I suspected this since Day 1. … China is known for its callous authoritarian state. … By law, Chinese companies have to comply with authoritarian demands from their government … and at any time can turn into an … arm of the state.
But there are far more immediate problems for society. So says u/Designer-Ruin7176:
It is unfortunate how many people just don’t care because it satisfies the current itch. TikTok has been a societal issue since it’s inception when it was filled with just pedophiles commenting and tweens acting inappropriately.
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[It became] a platform for people to quickly get swept into a different thought pattern, all because an algorithm is “suggesting” what’s next. There are sooooo many videos of altercations and people acting in ways that most could never fathom—until they see someone else do it, and then more folks see it, and slowly the behaviors are normalized. This **** is messing with people’s cognition.
And it’s not just China. damaki says it’s “just like American social network”:
It looks just like all other social networks. … American companies are heavily siphoning personal data of Europeans and we still cannot do anything about it—even with the GPDR.
Emily Baker-White is a staffer at a once-respected journal. But it’s not respected not any more, thinks pessimizer:
Nearly content-free article. … It talked about what Uber did and what Facebook did (I assume to fill space), then told a story about people feeling suspicious.
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Forbes is a ****ty outlet … where you float dubious stories, then get an army of bots and enraged nationalists to tweet links to them, then the NYT and WaPo both write stories about the Forbes story so they don’t have to sign any claims it makes. … Then I assume the FBI will open an investigation into the NYT story about the tweets about the Forbes story about nothing, and somebody on the floor of Congress will demand to know why we’re treating China with kid gloves when at this very moment the FBI is investigating the NYT reporting on the tweets about the Forbes story about how TikTok collects location data.
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This story [is] of a similar quality to the rest of Forbes’ journalism.
Meanwhile, AmazingRuss sees the bigger picture:
China wants to use that data to mind**** our morons. They saw how successful Russia was with Facebook.
And Finally:
Posh Fosh and the pachyderm in the parlor
You have been reading SB Blogwatch by Richi Jennings. Richi curates the best bloggy bits, finest forums, and weirdest websites … so you don’t have to. Hate mail may be directed to @RiCHi or [email protected]. Ask your doctor before reading. Your mileage may vary. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Do not stare into laser with remaining eye. E&OE. 30.
Image sauce: Eyestetix Studio (via Unsplash; leveled and cropped)
