Niall Ferguson: These 2 things are striking about TikTok
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TikTok's Chinese parent company, ByteDance, reportedly had plans to track individual Americans' locations through its short-form video app, according to materials reviewed by Forbes.
ByteDance’s Internal Audit and Risk Control team, which typically audits potential misconduct among ByteDance employees, also came up with plans to track a U.S. citizen, who had no affiliation with the company, on at least two occasions through TikTok, Forbes reported, citing "materials."
A TikTok spokesperson told Fox News Digital that Forbes "declined to include" the company's "direct statement that disproves the feasibility of its core allegation: the TikTok app does not collect precise GPS location information from US users, meaning TikTok could not monitor US users in the way the article suggested."
"Furthermore, the company's Internal Audit team has no role in TikTok product development and would not be able to create such functionality. TikTok has never been used to "target" any members of the U.S. government, activists, public figures or journalists, nor do we serve them a different content experience than other users," the spokesperson said.
TikTok parent company ByteDance reportedly had plans to track U.S. citizens through TikTok. (Brent Lewin/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
TikTok's "Internal Audit team follows set processes to acquire the data and information they need to conduct their internal investigations," which are "conducted only to assess specific claims, not to undertake open-ended inquiries into users, as insinuated by Forbes," the spokesperson said, adding that "any use of internal audit resources as alleged by Forbes would be grounds for immediate dismissal of company personnel."
ByteDance did not immediately respond to inquiries from FoxNews.com.
The companies reportedly did not respond to Forbes when asked whether ByteDance's audit team has previously tracked the locations of U.S. government officials, journalists or other public figures.
"Like most companies our size, we have an internal audit function responsible for objectively auditing and evaluating the company and our employees' adherence to our codes of conduct," ByteDance spokesperson Jennifer Banks in a statement to Forbes. "This team provides its recommendations to the leadership team."
TikTok is among the most frequently downloaded social media apps worldwide, as well as in the United States — specifically among young users. (CFOTO/Future Publishing via Getty Images)
Former President Donald Trump tried to outright ban the app and force its sale to a U.S. corporation. However, courts ruled that approach illegal, and President Joe Biden rolled back Trump's order soon after gaining office.
Biden did issue an executive order last month, underlying specific risks the U.S. Treasury Department’s Committee on Foreign Investment should consider when evaluating foreign companies, such as the "surveillance, tracing, tracking, and targeting of individuals or groups of individuals, with potential adverse impacts on national security."
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While TikTok has long insisted it does not share its data with the Chinese government or the Chinese Communist Party, executives have admitted under congressional testimony that its U.S. data is accessible from China.
TikTok is among the most frequently downloaded social media apps worldwide, as well as in the United States — specifically among young users.
Fox News' Anders Hagstrom contributed to this report.
