“We await a direct response from ByteDance, as this raises fundamental questions about what they are doing with the information they compile from TikTok users.”Īfter this story was published, TikTok spokesperson Hilary McQuaide said, 'The misconduct of certain individuals, who are no longer employed at ByteDance, was an egregious misuse of their authority to obtain access to user data.

“This is a direct assault on the idea of a free press and its critical role in a functioning democracy,” says Randall Lane, the chief content officer of Forbes. ( Disclosure: In a previous life, I held policy positions at Facebook and Spotify.) It tracked Emily Baker-White, Katharine Schwab and Richard Nieva, three Forbes journalists that formerly worked at BuzzFeed News. According to internal ByteDance documents reviewed by Forbes, Project Raven involved the company’s Chief Security and Privacy Office, was known to TikTok’s Head of Global Legal Compliance, and was approved by ByteDance employees in China.

user data, based on more than 80 hours of audio recordings of internal TikTok meetings. The investigation, internally known as Project Raven, began this summer after BuzzFeed News published a story revealing that China-based ByteDance employees had repeatedly accessed U.S. Randall Lane, the chief content officer of Forbes

“This is a direct assault on the idea of a free press and its critical role in a functioning democracy.”

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