TikTok Spying for China

TikTok sent US user data to China, lawsuit claims
BBC News

Video-sharing app TikTok has been hit with a class action lawsuit in the US that claims it transferred "vast quantities" of user data to China.
The lawsuit accuses the company of "surreptitiously" taking content without user consent.
Owned by Beijing-based ByteDance, TikTok has built up a keen US fan base.
TikTok, which is thought to have about half a billion active users worldwide, has previously said it does not store US data on Chinese servers.
However, the platform is facing mounting pressure in North America over data collection and censorship concerns.
The lawsuit filed in a Californian court last week claims TikTok "clandestinely... vacuumed up and transferred to servers in China vast quantities of private and personally-identifiable user data".
The data could be used to identify, profile and track users in the US "nw and in the future".

Ima

TikTok lets users make short videos and set them to music, before sharing with followers

The plaintiff is named as Misty Hong, a Californian-based university student. 

Ms Hong claims she downloaded the app this year but did not create an account.
Months later the firm had created an account for her, and surreptitiously took draft videos she had created but never intended to publish.
The data was sent to two servers in China, backed by Tencent and Alibaba.
The lawsuit also argues TikTok unfairly profits from "secret harvesting" of private data by using that data to derive "vast targeted-advertising revenues and profits".
TikTok did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

What is TikTok?
The platform has exploded in popularity in recent years, mostly with people under 20.
They use the app to share 15-second videos that typically involve lip-synching to songs, comedy routines and unusual editing tricks.
Alongside its rapid expansion, concerns have grown -- chiefly in the US -- over the potential to compromise users' privacy.
US lawmakers have put pressure on the company to clear up allegations that it is beholden to the Chinese state.
TikTok operates a similar but separate version of the app in China, known as Douyin. 

It says all US user data is stored in the United States, with a backup in Singapore.
Still, the company found itself in hot water last week, apologising to a US teenager who was blocked from the service after she posted a viral clip criticising China's treatment of the Uighur Muslims.
The company later lifted the ban.

China's Final Solution: TikTok parent company ByteDance is working with China's Communist Party to spread propaganda on East Turkestan

• ByteDance, the company that owns the viral video app TikTok, is working closely with China's government to facilitate human-rights abuses against Uighur Muslims in China's western colony of East Turkestan.
• The report, titled "Mapping more of China's tech giants: AI and surveillance," looked at the way major Chinese tech companies were involved in state-sanctioned surveillance and censorship using artificial intelligence packaged as popular apps and websites.
• ByteDance is collaborating with public security bureaus across China, including in East Turkestan where it plays an active role in disseminating the party-state's propaganda on East Turkestan.
• TikTok has been in the spotlight after it suspended the account of a US teenager Feroza Aziz after she posted a viral video on the app that was disguised as a makeup tutorial but criticized the Chinese government's treatment of Uighurs in East Turkestan.

By Rosie Perper

The Chinese company that owns the viral video app TikTok is working closely with China's government to facilitate human-rights abuses against Uighur Muslims in the western colony of East Turkestan, according to a new report by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.
The report, titled "Mapping more of China's tech giants: AI and surveillance," looked at the way major Chinese tech companies were involved in state-sanctioned surveillance and censorship using artificial intelligence packaged as popular apps and websites.
ByteDance, the parent company of the viral-video sensation TikTok, was mentioned in the report alongside other major Chinese tech companies including Huawei, Tencent, and Alibaba, all of which -- ASPI wrote -- "are engaged in deeply unethical behavior in East Turkestan, where their work directly supports and enables mass human rights abuses."
China is running thousands detention centers and forced labor camps in East Turkestan. 

Interviews with people who were held in the facilities reveal beatings and food deprivation, as well as medical experimentation on prisoners.
In its research, ASPI singled out ByteDance and accused it of acting alongside the Communist Party to enforce the country's strict censorship laws.
"ByteDance collaborates with public security bureaus across China, including in East Turkestan where it plays an active role in disseminating the party-state's propaganda on East Turkestan," the report said.
ByteDance operates two versions of its viral video app — a China-based app called Douyin and the global app TikTok.
TikTok is one of the most downloaded phone apps in the world and has already entered more than 150 global markets.
Previous reports cited by ASPI indicated that "East Turkestan Internet Police" had a presence on Douyin in 2018 and created a "new public security and internet social governance model."
ASPI also cited recent reporting that said China's Ministry of Public Security's Press and Publicity Bureau signed an agreement with ByteDance that allowed ministry and police officials to have their own Douyin accounts to push ministry propaganda. 

The report also said ByteDance would "increase its offline cooperation with the police department," though it was unclear what that partnership would entail.

ASPI added that other tech giants, including Alibaba and Huawei, contributed cloud computing and surveillance technologies in East Turkestan.
In October, the US blacklisted 28 Chinese organizations and companies accused of facilitating human-rights abuses in East Turkestan.

And earlier this month, sources told Reuters that the US opened a national security investigation into ByteDance after its $1 billion acquisition of the US social-media app Musical.ly in 2017.
TikTok has been in the spotlight after suspending the account of a US teenager named Feroza Aziz who posted a viral video on the app that was disguised as a makeup tutorial but criticized the Chinese government's treatment of Uighurs in East Turkestan.
The company apologized in a statement published to its website on Wednesday, saying that it stood behind its initial decision to suspend Aziz's account but that its moderation process "will not be perfect."
East Turkestan has a population of about 10 million, many of whom are Uighur or other ethnic minorities. 

In May, US Assistant Secretary of Defense Randall Schriver said "at least a million but likely closer to 3 million citizens" were detained detention camps.
Satellite images reviewed by the Washington-based East Turkistan National Awakening Movement earlier this month identified at least 465 detention centers, labor camps, and suspected prisons in East Turkestan.
And a recent leak of classified Chinese government documents known as the "China Cables" laid out a manual for exactly how the detention centers were to operate, preventing escape by double locking all the doors and using a "points system" based on behavior that is linked "directly to rewards, punishments, and family visits".

Chinese Espionage

Chinese tech firms don’t deserve the benefit of the doubt

By Josh Rogin

A man walks past signage for Chinese company ByteDance's app TikTok, known locally as Douyin, at the International Artificial Products Expo in Hangzhou, China, Oct. 18. 

The U.S. government and Congress are grappling with a new and daunting challenge: Chinese are amassing personal data on Americans at an alarming rate. 

But while there’s no firm plan on what to do about it, there’s consensus on the one thing we can’t do: trust Chinese tech firms to protect our data from the Chinese government and preserve Americans’ free speech.
“Parents, if you don’t know what TikTok is, you should. It’s a Chinese-owned social media platform so popular among teens that Mark Zuckerberg is reportedly spooked,” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) said at a Tuesday hearing of the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on crime and terrorism. 

“For Facebook, the fear is lost social media market share. For the rest of us, the fear is somewhat different. A company compromised by the Chinese Communist Party knows where your children are, knows what they look like, what their voices sound like, what they’re watching and what they share with each other.”
If that sounds alarmist, it’s because the facts are alarming. 

Representatives from TikTok and pro-China Apple (which was also invited to Hawley’s hearing) declined to testify at Hawley’s hearing, but TikTok defended itself in a statement Hawley read at the hearing.
“No governments, foreign or domestic, direct how we moderate TikTok content. TikTok does not remove content based on sensitivities related to China or any countries. We have never been asked by the Chinese government to remove any content and we would not do so if asked,” their statement said.
TikTok’s claims are contradicted by claims of former employees, who have told The Post that content decisions were made by company moderators in China.
“The former employees said their attempts to persuade Chinese teams not to block or penalize certain videos were routinely ignored, out of caution about the Chinese government’s restrictions and previous penalties on other ByteDance apps,” The Post reported.
ByteDance is the Chinese tech giant that owns TikTok. 

In September, the Guardian reported on internal guidelines that revealed ByteDance had instructed the censorship of content related to Tibet, the Tiananmen Square massacre and the Falun Gong religious sect. 

Chinese tech firms know the punishment if they don’t implement the censorship on their own; the government doesn’t even have to ask.
And, as Hawley pointed out, no Chinese or American tech company can credibly claim it would refuse a request for data on its users if it got a “knock on the door” from Chinese authorities. 

That’s why the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) opened an investigation into ByteDance’s 2017 acquisition of Musical.ly, which it renamed TikTok.
Anyone who doesn’t understand that all Americans’ data held by a Chinese tech firm is susceptible to Chinese government exploitation has “a fundamental misunderstanding of how the government in Beijing works,” Klon Kitchen, tech policy lead at the Heritage Foundation, testified at Tuesday’s hearing.
TikTok is only the latest Chinese-owned tech firm operating in the United States to be caught taking direction from its superiors in Beijing after claiming it wouldn’t. 

When Chinese tech giant Kunlun took over the gay dating app Grindr, it gave access of its user database to engineers in Beijing for a period of several months, NBC later revealed.
CFIUS is compelling Kunlun to sell Grindr and ordering it to keep all U.S. user data in the United States. 

But it’s too late. 

Once the sexual identity, habits and health statuses of millions of Americans are in Chinese hands, they can never be taken back. 

There’s zero doubt that Beijing is feeding all that information into the database it’s building to advance its own interests at our expense.
The implications are chilling. 

Just think if Beijing cross-referenced Grindr user data with the 22 million secret files on Americans China stole from the Office of Personnel Management in a 2015 hack. 

The intelligence advantages are obvious and dangerous.
That naturally brings up the question of what can be done apart from banning Chinese tech firms from operating inside the United States.

William A. Carter, deputy director of the Technology Policy Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, testified that the U.S. government must drastically increase its efforts to help companies protect Americans’ data, punish those who don’t, and work to establish and enforce international norms in this area.
But it’s not just about Americans’ past behavior and data; it’s also about the future information environment. 

In her company’s statement, TikTok’s U.S. general manager, Vanessa Pappas, identified a future risk in Chinese control over U.S. social media networks: the potential for covert election interference.
“TikTok team, senior staff and myself understand the importance of building a close and transparent working relationship with regulators and lawmakers,” she wrote. 

“This will be increasingly important during the upcoming U.S. election season.”
In other words, if Beijing can censor what Americans see in their social media streams on Tibet, they could censor what we see about President Trump, Joe Biden or Elizabeth Warren just as easily. 

We would never know. 

The algorithms are secret. 

There is no transparency. 

And based on the record of the Chinese government and Chinese tech firms, we would be stupid to just take their word for it.

Wicked Xi and the Traitorous Apple

Apple and TikTok's China ties are national security threats
By Kim Hart

Senator Josh Hawley. 

Sen. Josh Hawley says Apple and TikTok are threatening U.S. national security through their Chinese operations and connections.
In an exclusive interview with "Axios on HBO," the Missouri Republican called out Apple for choosing Chinese profits over American values. 

He also called on TikTok, owned by Beijing-based ByteDance, to testify under oath that it does not share American data with China's Communist Party.

Why it matters: On Tuesday, Hawley will chair a hearing highlighting the compromises that, he argues, U.S. tech companies make to do business in China. 

The hearing comes amid increasing tensions over trade and technology transfers between the U.S. and China.
Hawley invited Apple and TikTok executives to testify at Tuesday's hearing, called “How Corporations and Big Tech Leave Our Data Exposed to Criminals, China, and Other Bad Actors.”
The companies declined to appear, as of Sunday. 

The subcommittee will have open chairs for them during the hearing.

Hawley said he has two primary concerns:
American tech companies making deals with China's government to do business there.
China-based tech companies that are growing rapidly in America and collecting U.S. consumer data in the process.
"[As] these Big Tech companies try to get into the Chinese market, the compromises that they have to make with the Communist Chinese Party — who, let's not forget, partner with or control every industry of any size in China — what does that do to American security?" Hawley told "Axios on HBO."

The big picture: Hawley, who chairs the Senate Judiciary crime and terrorism subcommittee, is one of the most vocal Republican critics of Silicon Valley in Congress.
Lawmakers are already skeptical of TikTok's ties to China. 

Last week, Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) asked for a national security review of the platform.
On Friday, Reuters reported the U.S. government has opened a national security investigation into TikTok owner's acquisition of social media app Musical.ly two years ago.

The other side: TikTok, which is very popular among teenagers, has said all U.S. user data is stored in the U.S., with a backup server in Singapore. 

That doesn't ease Hawley's concerns.
"I would say that doesn't necessarily mean that the communist government doesn't have access to the data," he said. 

"I don't know that it matters where the data is stored for that kind of a company. I think you've got to assume that there is a backdoor way into that data."
He added that TikTok is a company people don't know much about. 

"Maybe it's growing in popularity, but what exactly does that company do? What's happening to our data when we use the app? Americans deserve answers."
A TikTok spokesperson said in a statement provided to Axios that the company appreciates the invitation to the hearing. 

"Unfortunately, on short notice, we were unable to provide a witness who would be able to contribute to a substantive discussion."
"We remain committed to working productively with Congress as it looks at how to secure the data of American users, protect their privacy, promote free expression, ensure competition and choice among internet platforms, and preserve U.S. national security interests," the spokesperson continued.

Apple, for its part, has said it uses encryption across devices and servers in all countries and insists there are no backdoors into data centers or systems. 

When asked about these security practices, Hawley wasn't comforted.
"My question is, are they storing encryption keys in China? The answer to that is yes. Then what kind of data are they storing in China? Whose data? Any American data? What about people who have Chinese relatives or business partners or other ventures, so they're communicating with people in China? Does that expose American users to potential surveillance by the Chinese state?"
Apple declined to comment on this story. 

However, it previously said that Apple — not its Chinese partner — retains control over encryption keys to iCloud data stored there.
Hawley said Silicon Valley needs to make a stand against China.
"They're willing to trade our basic democratic values and the privacy and security of Americans in order to make a buck in China and to get the favor of the Beijing government."

The bottom line: Hawley said his concern is that "the Communist Party could be scooping up" troves of data from the U.S. teenagers using TikTok and Apple products and apps.
"Think about what it will mean in 20 years when there's that much more data on them. Think about the profiles that American companies, [and] Chinese companies connected to the Communist Party, could build on people who are today just in their teens. I mean, these are the things that as a parent with two small children at home, I worry about every day."

                                                                                                      — Josh Hawley