An internal investigation has revealed that Chinese company ByteDance, which owns TikTok, used the company’s access to user data to improperly track American journalists, according to media reports.
A Dec. 22 report by Forbes revealed that an internal ByteDance investigation, conducted by an outside law firm, found that employees tracked multiple journalists who were responsible for covering the company, with a view to identifying internal sources of suspected leaks to the press.
This was done by improperly gaining access to the journalists’ IP addresses and other user data through TikTok and then cross-referencing that data to identify whether the journalists had frequented the same areas as ByteDance employees….