The Biden administration has recently stepped up pressure on TikTok over national security concerns stemming from its ties to China, and it appears the Justice Department and FBI are also exerting their own pressure.
Forbes first reported that the agency was actively investigating TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance. The investigation was reportedly launched after some employees used the app to spy on a US-based journalist. This is a case that was corroborated by an internal investigation late last year.
The New York Times and other news outlets now agree with Forbes’ report that the Fraud Division of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division is working with the FBI and the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia to investigate user privacy violations. I am sure that
An internal investigation by ByteDance found that some employees accessed data from an American journalist’s TikTok account to investigate who in the company was leaking information to reporters. Of the employees involved in this incident (who were subsequently dismissed), two were part of the company’s operations in China.
The latest revelations came a week before TikTok’s CEO was scheduled to testify before Congress. This is likely to raise deep skepticism even by technology hearing standards. In the days leading up to the hearings, the Biden administration significantly stepped up its stance on the company, threatening to ban the app in the United States if TikTok’s Chinese owners don’t sell the company.
TikTok has rejected new demands to sell the White House, arguing that selling the company would not address the government’s concerns. It will be difficult to convince the U.S. government that a China-based company operating in launched the initiative. The initiative will store US user data domestically and subject the company to an audit process conducted by US technology giant Oracle.
