Former TikTok employees reportedly say the app has worked closely with its parent company, Chinese tech giant ByteDance, despite claims to the contrary.
TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew told U.S. lawmakers in January that the app had severed most ties with ByteDance, which is beholden to the Chinese Communist Party, but former employees He said he has severed most ties with 11 employees, four of whom were employed until last year. Said Luck is another story.
As an example, Evan Turner, who worked as a senior data scientist at TikTok from April to September 2022, initially reported to ByteDance executives in Beijing, but at some point reported to executives based in Seattle. He said he was told to do so.
The only problem, Turner said, is that the American TikTok executive doesn’t exist except on paper.
After being told that he would be reporting to the Seattle-based executive, a human resources representative followed up with another conversation with Turner, stating that he would, in fact, continue to work with the Chinese ByteDance executive. a former TikTok employee said.
Turner said he has never met the executive, who is said to be based in Seattle, and continues to check in with ByteDance executives in China once a week.
Twice a month, the Beijing-based executive had a ByteDance employee in China email Turner a spreadsheet containing data on hundreds of thousands of TikTok users in the United States, he said. That’s what it means.
A former TikTok employee pointed out that the data included the names, email addresses, and IP addresses of U.S. users of the Chinese app, as well as geographic and demographic information.
“I was literally working on a project to give U.S. data to China,” Turner told Fortune. “They were totally complicit in it. The Americans who worked in the upper echelons were totally complicit in this as well.”
Notably, the reassignment of the Seattle-based fake executive comes after TikTok announced it would begin storing sensitive U.S. user data only in the U.S. and only allow U.S. employees to access it. This is what has been done.
The move was made to appease U.S. lawmakers who have expressed concerns about the risks TikTok poses to U.S. users and the United States in general.
As reported by Breitbart News, the US Senate is considering a bill that would ban ByteDance from selling TikTok if it does not sell it within six months. The Chinese app then purchased $2.1 million in TV ads in battleground states, apparently with the purpose of interfering in the U.S. election.
you can Follow Alana Mastrangelo Facebook and on X/Twitter @ARmastrangeloand further Instagram.
