Dhe US Department of Justice and the FBI federal police are investigating the Chinese parent company of the social media app Tiktok, according to media reports, because of possible spying on journalists. It is about whether the Bytedance group violated the law when collecting data from Tiktok users, several US media reported, citing insiders. Journalists who reported on the tech industry were among the users in question, it said.
A spokeswoman for Bytedance told US media that the group had sharply condemned the actions of individuals involved in the operations. The relevant employees no longer worked for the company, it said. An internal investigation is still ongoing and the company is prepared to cooperate with any investigations by the authorities.
Due to increasing concerns about data security, the pressure on Tiktok has been increasing in the US lately. This week, US media reported that the US government had demanded that Bytedance sell Tiktok. Otherwise, Tiktok could face a ban in the USA. The call for a change in ownership of Tiktok reportedly came from the government body Cfius (Committee on Foreign Investment in the US), which scrutinizes foreign investments in the US.
In the US, both Republicans and US President Joe Biden’s Democrats have expressed concern that Chinese authorities and intelligence agencies could use Tiktok to gather information about Americans or influence them. Tiktok, with more than a billion users, is the only large online platform that is also successful in the West that does not come from the USA.