ByteDance Confirms TikTok Accessed Journalists' Data

Facts

• ByteDance, TikTok's Chinese parent company, announced Thursday that the TikTok user data of two journalists had been improperly accessed, and the employees involved had left the company.
• Those involved allegedly had accessed the journalists' data to determine if they had been in the same location as employees suspected of leaking confidential information. Of the four employees allegedly involved, two were in the US and two were in China.
• ByteDance said the TikTok employees targeted Emily Baker-White, who wrote for BuzzFeed before moving to Forbes; and Cristina Criddle of the Financial Times, though it did not specify other impacted TikTok users. Forbes reported that two other members of its reporting team had been targeted.
• In a statement, ByteDance said the employees' actions were "an egregious misuse of their authority" and described the behavior as "unacceptable."
• Some of the employees named as being involved were Chris Lepitak, the app's chief internal auditor, who led the team responsible for the breach; and China-based executive Song Ye, who Lepitak reported to and who reports directly to ByteDance CEO Rubo Liang. Lepitak was fired, and Song resigned.
• These revelations come as states across the US have banned TikTok on state government-issued devices. The US Senate also recently voted to ban the platform on federal devices.

Sources: Reuters, Engadget, New York Times, Forbes, and FT.

Narratives

• Narrative A, as provided by Guardian. It’s becoming clear that TikTok is a threat to US national security. Though ByteDance initially denied the accusations, it eventually had to come clean as the topic attracted increasing media attention. Reporters have the right to not be spied on by tech companies — especially companies that are close to the Chinese government.
• Narrative B, as provided by ANI. This incident was a privacy violation, but ByteDance has taken the appropriate steps to fix the issue. Although some are framing this incident as spying by TikTok, in reality, these actions were undertaken by rogue employees in an unsanctioned manner. ByteDance has disavowed these departed employees' actions and is implementing policies to prevent these types of breaches in the future.