TikTok Employees Spied on Journalists, ByteDance Inquiry Finds

TikTok employees improperly accessed the TikTok user data of two journalists and spied on them, an internal investigation by parent company ByteDance has found. 

According to Forbes(Opens in a new window), the workers, who are no longer employed by ByteDance, tracked the journalists’ whereabouts in order to discover their sources for stories that uncovered the company’s links(Opens in a new window) to the Chinese government, among other things.

The four employees who were involved in the spying campaign have lost their jobs, ByteDance said(Opens in a new window); two were based in China and two were in the US. The company has additionally stressed it is taking extra steps to protect user data, Reuters reports(Opens in a new window).

The targeted reporters were Emily Baker-White, who reported for BuzzFeed when the investigation was launched and is now at Forbes, and Financial Times journalist Cristina Criddle. Forbes reported that two more of its reporters, Katharine Schwab and Richard Nieva, also ex-BuzzFeed journalists, were spied on by TikTok.

ByteDance CEO Rubio Liang revealed the internal investigation’s findings to employees in emails seen and reported by Forbes. One email said: “I was deeply disappointed when I was notified of the situation…and I’m sure you feel the same. The public trust that we have spent huge efforts building is going to be significantly undermined by the misconduct of a few individuals.” 

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In a statement reported by Reuters, The Financial Times said “spying on reporters, interfering with their work or intimidating their sources is completely unacceptable. We’ll be investigating this story more fully before deciding our formal response.”

Meanwhile, BuzzFeed News spokesperson Lizzie Grams said the spying showed a “blatant disregard for the privacy and rights of journalists as well as TikTok users.”

Randall Lane, the chief content officer of Forbes, said the actions by the former TikTok employees amounted to a “direct assault on the idea of a free press and its critical role in a functioning democracy.”

TikTok spokesperson Hilary McQuaide told Forbes: “The misconduct of certain individuals, who are no longer employed at ByteDance, was an egregious misuse of their authority to obtain access to user data. This misbehavior is unacceptable, and not in line with our efforts across TikTok to earn the trust of our users.”

The news comes as US officials mount an increasingly aggressive campaign against the hugely popular video app. Last week, the Senate voted unanimously for the second time to ban TikTok from all government-issued phones and devices. Republican Senator Josh Hawley alleged(Opens in a new window) that the app is a “Trojan Horse” for the Chinese Communist Party. 

Republican-run states have raced to ban the use of the app, with 19 states now having at least partially blocked access on government devices to TikTok, Reuters reported(Opens in a new window). Days ago, bans in Louisiana and West Virginia added to that number.