Media News

TikTok spied on Forbes journalists

According to materials reviewed by Forbes, TikTok parent ByteDance tracked multiple Forbes journalists as part of this covert surveillance campaign, which was designed to unearth the source of leaks inside the company, reports Emily Baker-White of Forbes.

Baker-White reports, “The investigation, internally known as Project Raven, began this summer after BuzzFeed News published a story revealing that China-based ByteDance employees had repeatedly accessed U.S. user data, based on more than 80 hours of audio recordings of internal TikTok meetings. According to internal ByteDance documents reviewed by Forbes, Project Raven involved the company’s Chief Security and Privacy Office, was known to TikTok’s Head of Global Legal Compliance, and was approved by ByteDance employees in China. It tracked Emily Baker-White, Katharine Schwab and Richard Nieva, three Forbes journalists that formerly worked at BuzzFeed News.

“‘This is a direct assault on the idea of a free press and its critical role in a functioning democracy,’ says Randall Lane, the chief content officer of Forbes. ‘We await a direct response from ByteDance, as this raises fundamental questions about what they are doing with the information they compile from TikTok users.’

“ByteDance and TikTok did not respond to multiple requests for comment via phone and email.”

Read more here.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.

Recent Posts

CNBC taps Sullivan as “Power Lunch” co-anchor

CNBC senior vice president Dan Colarusso sent out the following on Monday: Before this year comes to…

23 hours ago

Business Insider hires Brooks as standards editor

Business Insider editor in chief Jamie Heller sent out the following on Monday: I'm excited to share…

24 hours ago

Is this the end of CoinDesk as we know it?

Former CoinDesk editorial staffer Michael McSweeney writes about the recent happenings at the cryptocurrency news site, where…

2 days ago

LinkedIn finance editor Singh departs

Manas Pratap Singh, finance editor for LinkedIn News Europe, has left for a new opportunity…

3 days ago

Washington Post announces start of third newsroom

Washington Post executive editor Matt Murray sent out the following on Friday: Dear All, Over the last…

4 days ago

FT hires Moens to cover competition and tech in Brussels

The Financial Times has hired Barbara Moens to cover competition and tech in Brussels. She will start…

4 days ago