In the face of a U.S. ban, TikTok has publicly claimed that U.S. users’ data is isolated from its Chinese parent company ByteDance, but two former employees of the highly addictive social media site say otherwise. claims.
Patrick Spalding Ryan, former head of security and engineering at TikTok, said: told Fortune The company was unable to sever ties with ByteDance because of its complex computer structure, which gave the parent company control over the messaging and technology management software of TikTok’s U.S. staff.
Ryan, who worked at TikTok’s Mountain View, Calif. office from March 2020 to June 2022, according to his LinkedIn profile. He is an employee,” Fortune reported.
Another former TikTok employee, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of having restricted stock units held within the company seized, also questioned the effectiveness of TikTok’s so-called US Data Security Team (USDS). Ta. The media reported that it was set up to hide US user data.
In a further effort to isolate data, TikTok had its U.S. staff communicate through its own internal messaging system called Lark, which was hosted in an Oracle data center with USDS in Virginia.
However, this system was not efficient for TikTok’s international employees.
As a result, U.S. staff rarely used Lark and instead communicated through Feishu, developed by ByteDance, Ryan and an anonymous employee told Fortune.
“when [USDS] It has to be the Chinese company’s version of Lark or Feishu, as people want to call it, in making any decisions,” said a former TikTok employee.
“That server is in China. It’s run by Chinese people,” the official added.
The allegations undermine TikTok’s claims that it stores data on more than 170 million U.S. users, most of them under 30.
In response to Ryan’s claims, a TikTok spokesperson also told Fortune that all TikTok user data will be stored on systems based in Virginia and Singapore, away from China, by 2022. .
The spokesperson declined to respond to allegations that some of the company’s enterprise systems were hosted in China until at least 2022, according to a Fortune report.
“This report is inaccurate and is driven by anonymous sources with clearly predetermined objectives,” the spokesperson added.
Representatives for TikTok and ByteDance did not immediately respond to The Post’s requests for comment.
U.S. officials have warned that ByteDance’s secret algorithms allow third parties in China to spy on U.S. users, threatening national security.
Concerned users also cited the app’s strange requests (such as asking them to enter their iPhone password to view content) as reasons why TikTok is allegedly spying on US-based users. ) are listed.
President Joe Biden subsequently signed a bill forcing ByteDance to sell TikTok’s U.S. operations within the next year or face a nationwide ban.
In a statement posted to X in response to the ultimatum, TikTok reiterated that the ban was “unconstitutional” and said it would challenge the decision in court.
“We believe the facts and the law are clearly on our side and that ultimately we will prevail. “We have invested billions of dollars to protect against influence and manipulation,” the company added.
