So, Does TikTok Track American User Location? Forbes Claims, ByteDance Denies

No later than October 20, the Forbes website posted a material about TikTok by Emily Baker-White, which emphasized that TikTok had planned to track the location of some users in the U.S. Without their consent; that was the focus of the article. Now, TikTok tries to refute it in a series of tweets.

While the original article says that ByteDance has a special monitoring team with Song Ye as the head, whose direct superior is Rubo Liang, the CEO of ByteDance. Named the Internal Audit Team, this division had the job of tracking certain users; though how much data has been collected is unknown, the team has been noticed as tracking data of a certain American citizen who had never had any business relationships with ByteDance and so couldn’t have authorized them to collect such data.

TikTok did confirm that it collected user data, including their location based on the IP. But while it says the data would be used for advertising purposes, this doesn’t explain how TikTok planned to surveil individual citizens, not audiences. There also have been requests for such data from China.
Though the article in Forbes was based on the real statement posted on TikTok official site, the journalist seems to have missed the point, TikTok says on Twitter. According to ByteDance, TikTok has never collected any GPS-related data to reveal a person’s precise location.

In response, Emily Baker-White of Forbes says in her tweets that TikTok spokespersons seem to have missed the point as well. According to her, the article didn’t mention GPS tracking at all (this is the accusation TikTok is denying). Further, she emphasizes that TikTok hadn’t answered the questions asked by Forbes before the article was published. And finally, Emily Baker-White is still sure that ByteDance did indeed plan to track some specific users.

Will ByteDance reply? The answer may be critical for the very ability of TikTok to operate in the U.S. and probably other countries also concerned about security. TikTok has been scrutinized more than once because of its alleged (and quite palatable) relationships with Chinese powers that be.

Now that Xi has effectively destroyed the opposition in the CCP, and the Senate is still investigating data flowing from the U.S. to Chinese employees of ByteDance, these fears can’t be dismissed. Officially, though, TikTok is playing safe, even demonstratively stepping aside from any American political issues. Its spokespersons also say they’re ready to satisfy any demands regarding safety from the American government. The next step can be made by any party, while short videos remain fun for most viewers.