TikTok, one of the most popular social media platforms in the world, has recently faced bans from many places such as the UK, USA, Canada and the European Union due to the use of user data. In the midst of all this, it has now emerged that another blow has come to ByteDance, the roof company of the platform.
According to a report by Forbes based on people close to the subject, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the US Department of Justice launched an investigation against the China-based company.
The investigation comes after ByteDance admitted in recent months that its employees were spying on some journalists.
The reason for the investigation is that ByteDance is using TikTok data without permission to spy on some journalists and track their location. Chinese technology giant ByteDance announced in December that four employees who used TikTok to spy on two journalists were fired and admitted the incident. You can find the details of what happened in our content here.
According to the new report, penned by one of the surveillance journalists, Emily Baker-White, ministry officials asked ByteDance for information on efforts to access employee journalists’ location information. On the other hand, it was stated that the FBI is also continuing negotiations regarding the surveillance incident.
ByteDance spokesperson Jennifer Banks said in a statement on the subject, “We strongly condemned those who were found to be related to the incident and they are no longer working at ByteDance. “Our internal investigation continues and we will cooperate with all official investigations that come to us,” he said.
The investigation comes at a time that has already been quite challenging for ByteDance. As we mentioned at the beginning, TikTok has been banned on official phones in many countries in recent days. On the other hand, yesterday’s news showed that US officials demanded the sale of TikTok from ByteDance. This news came after allegations that TikTok could be separated from its Chinese owner and become independent.
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