For years, TikTok has responded to data privacy concerns by promising that information gathered about users in the United States is stored in the United States, rather than China, where ByteDance, the video platform's parent company, is located. But according to leaked audio from more than 80 internal TikTok meetings, China-based employees of ByteDance have repeatedly accessed nonpublic data about US TikTok users — exactly the type of behavior that inspired former president Donald Trump to threaten to ban the app in the United States.

The recordings, which were reviewed by BuzzFeed News, contain 14 statements from nine different TikTok employees indicating that engineers in China had access to US data between September 2021 and January 2022, at the very least. Despite a TikTok executive’s sworn testimony in an October 2021 Senate hearing that a “world-renowned, US-based security team” decides who gets access to this data, nine statements by eight different employees describe situations where US employees had to turn to their colleagues in China to determine how US user data was flowing. US staff did not have permission or knowledge of how to access the data on their own, according to the tapes.

 

“Everything is seen in China,” said a member of TikTok’s Trust and Safety department in a September 2021 meeting. In another September meeting, a director referred to one Beijing-based engineer as a “Master Admin” who “has access to everything.”

 

The recordings range from small-group meetings with company leaders and consultants to policy all-hands presentations and are corroborated by screenshots and other documents, providing a vast amount of evidence to corroborate prior reports of China-based employees accessing US user data. Their contents show that data was accessed far more frequently and recently than previously reported, painting a rich picture of the challenges the world’s most popular social media app has faced in attempting to disentangle its US operations from those of its parent company in Beijing. Ultimately, the tapes suggest that the company may have misled lawmakers, its users, and the public by downplaying that data stored in the US could still be accessed by employees in China.

 

source: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/emilybakerwhite/tiktok-tapes-us-user-data-china-bytedance-access

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For reference here's the video of TikTok executive refusing to answer questions relating to the CCP and TikTok back in October of last year

 

 

 

That this was common knowledge since like 2020. 

 

We've been knowing this since Tiktok first started blowing up and no one did anything about it then lol

And yet the morons of the world still use TiK ToK lol or any social media for that matter. It's crazy how no one cares 

Of course they did. How do you think Chinese developers will access the backend of the app without doing so?

That this is nearly a month old and made no noise shows Buzzfeed over-estimated another China-bait article.

 

 

Wait until some of you realize ATRL staff can view your DMs in the same way all social media companies can access all user data.  Even if it's just Admins with database access - if something is ENTERED into a forum's database, anyone who then can ACCESS that database has access to it. By this logic, the entire concept of app development or web development is 'snooping'. 

Edited July 10, 20224 yr by Communion

No one cares, tbh  F*** TikTok, tho

Edited July 10, 20224 yr by bliaz

USA is also trying to ban TikTok. They're just mad China did what the USA has been trying to do 

We need regime change in America, Xi Jinping,  take what you need to make it happen

idc

republican gasp

 

eveyrone still using it tho

8 minutes ago, A Bomb said:

We need regime change in America, Xi Jinping,  take what you need to make it happen

ccp is worse than usa gov 

10 minutes ago, SmittenCake said:

ccp is worse than usa gov 

Why exactly? Genuinely asking

3 minutes ago, Love Again said:

Why exactly? Genuinely asking

for starters: 

- no freedom of speech

- no freedom of religion

- censored internet regulated by ccp

- sailor moon is banned 

 

no one should praise an authoritarian government that recognizes the taliban and DPRK 

 

Edited July 10, 20224 yr by SmittenCake

26 minutes ago, Love Again said:

Why exactly? Genuinely asking

They banned an entire genre of music (k-pop) and barred any South Korean idol of performing in mainland China because of a innocent Taiwanese girl just living her life being a k-pop idol in South Korea that happened to make the unforgivable "mistake" of displaying the flag of her own country - Taiwan - during a livestream.

The US government is horrible in many ways but let's not even compare it to something like the CCP that will delete you from existence without thinking twice once they find an issue with you.

Edited July 10, 20224 yr by Taylena

Just now, Taylena said:

They banned an entire genre of music (k-pop) and barred any South Korean idol of performing in mainland China because of Taiwanese girl just living her life being a k-pop idol in South Korea that happened to "make the mistake" of displaying the flag of her country - Taiwan - during a livestream.

The US government is horrible in many ways but let's not even compare it to something like the CCP that will delete you from existence without thinking twice once they find an issue with you.

Not you guys making the case for them. Ban that industry! 

29 minutes ago, Love Again said:

Why exactly? Genuinely asking

 

3 minutes ago, A Bomb said:

Not you guys making the case for them. Ban that industry! 

https://www.icij.org/investigations/china-cables/xinjiang-police-files-uyghur-mugshots-detention/
 

Ew at the CCP Stan’s in this thread. 

I'm tired of everything.

1 minute ago, Bears01 said:

 

https://www.icij.org/investigations/china-cables/xinjiang-police-files-uyghur-mugshots-detention/
 

Ew at the CCP Stan’s in this thread. 

Asking questions doesn’t make you a ‘’stan’’ of a country. Why can’t you guys ever have normal convos with someone my god 

6 minutes ago, Love Again said:

Asking questions doesn’t make you a ‘’stan’’ of a country. Why can’t you guys ever have normal convos with someone my god 

…..I wasn’t referring to you, CHIlL

9 minutes ago, Love Again said:

Asking questions doesn’t make you a ‘’stan’’ of a country. Why can’t you guys ever have normal convos with someone my god 

Because their interest in China either comes from resentments to China's presence in SEA (which could be understandable if it wasn't so awkwardly shrouded in ethnocentric hatred like one user who kept calling Han Chinese people 'ugly rats') or Americans projecting their empire's collapse as somehow China's fault.

 

The fact that a simple topic about whether app developers having access to the data of an app they develop is wrong (spoiler: it's not because it's literally impossible to not do) becomes an ontological debate about whether the Chinese people as a whole and their government are morally good or morally bad shows big weirdo energy from some people. 

 

in 50 years, these people will be looked at in the same way old Westerners are who shout about Vietnamese people. 

Edited July 10, 20224 yr by Communion

3 minutes ago, Communion said:

Chinese people as a whole a

You just love to spread lies. People rightfully condemn the CCP because of their human rights atrocities. Superpowers like CCP and the US shouldn't be superpowers while continuously funding war, geocide and destabilization of other nations.  How grotesque and unfathomable of you to always come to CCP + DPRK's defense when their actions are questioned. This is where people on the Left lose me. We call out the USA/The West for being bullies and then view the CCP and other dictatorships as model governments. 

 

If there was such thing as a ethical "dictatorship" of a country where people's rights come first, then I wouldn't be opposed. But to see people be so warm when it comes to discussing these rouge regimes is worrisome. 

10 minutes ago, Communion said:

Because their interest in China either comes from resentments to China's presence in SEA (which could be understandable if it wasn't so awkwardly shrouded in ethnocentric hatred like one user who kept calling Han Chinese people 'ugly rats') or Americans projecting their empire's collapse as somehow China's fault.

 

The fact that a simple topic about whether app developers having access to the data of an app they develop is wrong (spoiler: it's not because it's literally impossible to not do) becomes an ontological debate about whether the Chinese people as a whole and their government are morally good or morally bad shows big weirdo energy from some people. 

 

in 50 years, these people will be looked at in the same way old Westerners are who shout about Vietnamese people. 

Yes, because stanning for a government that enslaves and murders people because of their religion isn’t totally weird at all (hint, it is). Good thing the majority of people around the world agree with y…oh wait: https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2020/10/06/unfavorable-views-of-china-reach-historic-highs-in-many-countries/