In another September meeting, a director referred to one Beijing-based engineer as a “Master Admin” who “has access to everything.” (While many employees introduced themselves by name and title in the recordings, BuzzFeed News is not naming anyone to protect their privacy.) “Everything is seen in China,” said a member of TikTok’s Trust and Safety department in a September 2021 meeting.
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US staff did not have permission or knowledge of how to access the data on their own, according to the tapes. 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. 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. 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.
Since then, lawmakers have introduced several bills aimed at curbing targeted advertising to children and preventing social media companies from tracking data on young users.ĭuring his State of the Union address on Tuesday, President Biden urged privacy and other regulatory protections for youth online, saying, “We must hold social media accountable for the national experiment they’re conducting on our children for profit.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. Several members of Congress, in hearings late last year on child online safety, said they had heard from families that teen girls were directed to harmful content on Instagram that contributed to eating disorders and self harm. Leaked internal documents from a Facebook whistle-blower last year revealed the company had found that some teenage users of Instagram felt worse about themselves and their body images after using the app. The issue of online child safety has taken center stage in Washington, and social media companies have come under intense scrutiny over their potential harms to children and teens. “We care deeply about building an experience that helps to protect and support the well-being of our community and appreciate that the state attorneys general are focusing on the safety of younger users,” the company said in a statement. TikTok said it had added new safety and privacy measures aimed at protecting teenage users. “State attorneys general have an imperative to protect young people and seek more information about how companies like TikTok are influencing their daily lives.” “As children and teens already grapple with issues of anxiety, social pressure and depression, we cannot allow social media to further harm their physical health and mental well-being,” Maura Healey, the attorney general of Massachusetts, said in a statement. The states, led by Massachusetts, Nebraska and California, are investigating how TikTok may have tried to boost engagement and keep young users hooked to the app. (Facebook’s parent company has been renamed Meta.) The examination of TikTok, which is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, is similar to an investigation into Facebook that the coalition of attorneys general began in November. A bipartisan group of state attorneys general announced on Wednesday that it had opened an investigation into TikTok and potential harms that the popular social media app may pose to younger users.Īt least eight states are investigating if the design and promotion of TikTok contribute to physical and mental health harms for teenagers and young adults and if the company has violated state consumer protection laws.
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