The US Department of Justice is probing ByteDance’s surveillance of American journalists via TikTok, according to a person familiar with the matter, as authorities scrutinise the popular social media platform’s Chinese owner after it admitted to improperly obtaining user data.
ByteDance in December revealed user data from the short-form video app was obtained to study journalists’ locations as part of an internal investigation into information being shared with the media.
The DoJ and the US attorney’s office for the Eastern District of Virginia have requested information from ByteDance on how staff used TikTok to find details on American journalists’ locations and other private data, according to Forbes, which first reported the investigations.