A new case that incriminates ByteDance, the Chinese company behind TikTok, has just arisen. Indeed, the Chinese social network is now accused of spying against several Western citizens.
Allegations quickly denied by the Beijing firm, which explained itself on this subject.
Serious facts alleged
TikTok continues to make headlines in the Western market. In 2019, the social network had already been fined $5.7 million for the illegal collection of personal data belonging to teenagers. Repeat again last September, as the company is now accused of breaching UK data protection law. It then risks a fine of 30 million euros.
This week is Forbes which ignites the powder. Indeed, the magazine claims that ByteDance uses TikTok to “ monitor the location of specific US citizens “. We learn in this article that the internal audit team of the firm intended to follow the movements of two Americans. The latter would never have worked for ByteDance, and the reasons which would have motivated this supposed espionage have not been revealed by Forbes (in order to protect its sources).
A formal denial
Of course, the magazine reached out to TikTok officials for answers. The social network’s Twitter account then split several tweets in an attempt to defuse the controversy. To answer to Forbes, the Chinese company clarified that it has never monitored American politicians, public figures, activists or other journalists. These groups of people would not be treated differently from other users.
In its message thread, TikTok therefore publicly denies the entire report, stating that its social network does not carry out “ collecting precise GPS location information from US users “. The application would thus have ” never been used to target ” somebody. In addition, the press release mentions the fact that if an employee of the company were to be caught spying on an Internet user, he would be fired on the spot!
It remains to be seen whether further investigation will unravel the true from the false in this story.
Sources: The Verge, Forbes
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