TikTok Executives Delegate Key Decisions to CCP Officials, Employees Say
TikTok has worked over the past year to move American users’ data to the U.S. amid concerns from U.S. officials that the Chinese Communist Party could potentially access the data, though a new report shows TikTok’s ties to its Chinese parent company could pose a host of other security concerns.
TikTok has worked for the past year on what is known internally as “Project Texas,” which includes the creation of U.S.-specific clones of TikTok’s internal systems, including tracking and analytics tools, as well as the app’s recommendation algorithm, BuzzFeed News reported.
However, the outlet says it interviewed more than a dozen current and former TikTok employees who described TikTok and its China-based parent company, ByteDance, as “sometimes so closely entwined” that it is unclear where one stops and the other begins.
Workers told BuzzFeed about some senior leadership decisions being handed down by unknown actors in Beijing, while other employees said their managers made key product decisions after they had “talked to Beijing,” according to the report. Ten of the employees who spoke to BuzzFeed News said they did not know the identities of the people that their managers, or their managers’ managers, reported to.
One employee told the outlet they were asked to enter sensitive information into a .cn domain.
Meanwhile, ByteDance reportedly controls TikTok’s workplace infrastructure and has the right to share internal company communications with governments, raising concerns that sensitive internal communications could be shared with the CCP.
TikTok employees use ByteDance’s workplace toolsuite, Lark, for communications and administrative tasks, according to the report. The toolsuite’s privacy policy said the company may share data, which is store in Singapore, “to assist in law enforcement and investigations conducted by any governmental and/or regulatory authority.”
Several U.S.-based employees told the outlet they used Feishu, ByteDance’s toolsuite for mainland China. Feishu’s privacy policy says that the company may share users’ data, which is stored in China, when it is “directly related to” national security, public safety, or other “major public interests.”
A spokesperson for ByteDance told BuzzFeed the Chinese government has never asked for TikTok employee communications from Feishu or Lark.
Much of the focus on TikTok’s potential security concerns has been on American user data. The report notes that Project Texas does not appear to defend against other ways the CCP could exert influence over the platform, including altering TikTok algorithms to increase exposure to divisive content or using the platform to start disinformation campaigns.
The app previously censored videos on topics of Chinese political importance, The Guardian reported in 2019. Meanwhile, the company paid $92 million to settle a class action lawsuit last year accusing TikTok of transferring U.S. user data to servers in China.
Upon taking office last year, President Joe Biden reversed an executive order signed by former president Donald Trump that would have effectively banned TikTok and replaced it with new guidelines for reviewing the app’s potential risk to U.S. consumer data.
A tentative deal was reached for Oracle to purchase TikTok in 2020 after Trump announced that he would ban the platform if it was not sold to a U.S. company. The sale was paused in February 2021 after Trump left office.
Now TikTok and Oracle have reportedly been negotiating a deal for Oracle to store all American user data. Access to that data would be limited to a specific team, U.S. Tech Services (USTS). The new U.S. systems would be hosted in data centers owned by Oracle.
However, it has not yet been decided how much control ByteDance’s Beijing team will have over the USTS team, employees reportedly told BuzzFeed News.
While USTS employees currently report to middle managers in the U.S. who report to a ByteDance executive in China, the company is considering ways to restrict Chinese managers’ access to USTS information, sources told BuzzFeed News.
