In a fresh broadside against one of the world’s most popular technology companies, the Justice Department late Friday accused TikTok of harnessing the capability to gather bulk information on users based on views on divisive social issues like gun control, abortion and religion.
Government lawyers wrote in documents filed to the federal appeals court in Washington that TikTok and its Beijing-based parent company ByteDance used an internal web-suite system called Lark to enable TikTok employees to speak directly with ByteDance engineers in China.
TikTok employees used Lark to send sensitive data about U.S. users, information that has wound up being stored on Chinese servers and accessible to ByteDance employees in China, federal officials said.
One of Lark’s internal search tools, the filing states, permits ByteDance and TikTok employees in the U.S. and China to gather information on users’ content or expressions, including views on sensitive topics, such as abortion or religion. Last year, the Wall Street Journal reported TikTok had tracked users who watched LGBTQ content through a dashboard the company said it had since deleted.
I think it’s twofold. There is an influence concern, but I think it’s more that the US doesn’t feel like it can lean on TikTok to push their propaganda while it very clearly does on other social media platforms. I also think that there’s a monetary thing. Congress doesn’t have an issue with American companies doing it because the companies make a ton of money selling influence and advertising data. Congress doesn’t like the fact that those advertising dollars aren’t going to US billionaires