TikTok lied to us.
They’re sharing American user data
with China.
Welcome to China Uncensored, I’m Chris Chappell.
This episode is sponsored by Incogni.
You probably know that companies are collecting your personal data. But you may not realize
just how many. Dozens, maybe hundreds—most of which you’ve never heard of. And you have
no idea what they’re doing with it. Incogni helps stop them. I’ll explain more at the end.
Speaking of companies sharing way too much user data, TikTok .
With over a billion users worldwide, TikTok is a place where you can post short clips of anything.
Unfortunately.
Well, China just saw that.
See, TikTok is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance . And like all Chinese companies,
ByteDance is required by law to have a Communist Party branch inside the company,
as well as cooperate with the Party on state intelligence work.
Given how the CCP wants to control what people do, say, and think, that should terrify you.
China’s influence on Tiktok is why the US military has required its personnel to delete the app.
And why India has outright banned TikTok.
In 2020, President Donald Trump almost succeeded in banning TikTok in the US,
until federal courts blocked it and President Joe Biden revoked the order.
TikTok was “shocked” by Trump’s attempted ban! Because that ban undermined the rule of law!
...says a corporation beholden to an authoritarian regime that uses rape as a form of torture.
And it’s weird that President Biden revoked the order, since
two years ago during his campaign, he had told his own staff to delete TikTok from their phones.
For years, TikTok tried to assure its users around the world, saying, “Our data centers
are located entirely outside of China, and none of our data is subject to Chinese law.”
“We are not influenced by any foreign government, including the Chinese government;
TikTok does not operate in China, nor do we have any intention of doing so in the future.”
But last year, former TikTok employees told CNBC
the social media company is tightly controlled by ByteDance.
And that ByteDance has access to US user data.
And now, it’s more than just hearsay. There’s proof—in
the form of leaked audio recordings from 80 internal TikTok meetings, thanks to Buzzfeed.
I’ll explain more after the break.
Welcome back.
TikTok says your data is safe, and China can’t touch it. After all,
TikTok is totally separate from its China-based parent company, ByteDance.
“Would you consider Beijing ByteDance Technology to be a part of TikTok’s corporate group
with whom TikTok could share all of the information it collects?”
“Senator, I want to be clear that that entity has no affiliation with TikTok.”
That TikTok representative refused to give a straight answer on whether
Chinese entities can access American user data.
Because the true answer is YES.
That’s something I’ve been saying since 2020. I knew TikTok shared user data with China,
because of how the Chinese Communist Party operates.
“If and when Beijing makes a demand, it is hard for Chinese-based companies to say no.”
And now this new audio leak bombshell proves it.
“According to leaked audio from more than 80 internal TikTok meetings,
China-based employees of ByteDance have repeatedly accessed nonpublic data about US TikTok users.”
Nonpublic data could be anything that TikTok collects
that’s not in the videos. Like users’ birthdates, phone numbers, GPS locations.
As a member of TikTok’s Trust and Safety department put it, “Everything is seen in China.”
What’s scary is that TikTok employees in the US have less access than Beijing.
According to the leaked audio, “US staff did not have permission or
knowledge of how to access the data on their own.”
But you know who does? A Beijing-based “Master Admin” who “‘has access to everything’”.
TikTok employees don’t even know what certain tools in TikTok do. In a November 2021 meeting,
a data scientist said there’s no documented how-to explanation for the tools.
“There are items within the tools that nobody knows what they’re for.”
Way to go, TikTok. You’ve promised to keep us safe and secure, yet your US
employees don’t even know the extent of what your app does.
To assure us that data from US users would be safe from ByteDance,
TikTok says, “We’ve changed the default storage location of US user data.”
“We’re also making operational changes in line with this work…with US-based
leadership, to solely manage US user data for TikTok.”
This is part of Project Texas, a deal to store TikTok’s US data in the Oracle Cloud system.
The deal to transfer data to an American company was started by
the Trump administration to keep Americans’ data safe from China.
TikTok says a hundred percent of US user traffic
is being routed to Oracle, with TikTok’s US and Singapore data centers for backup.
They also say that they’ll delete US users’ private data from those data centers.
But this might not do much to stop China from accessing our data. After all, it doesn’t matter
where the data is located as long as people in China still have the keys to the castle.
TikTok employees themselves admit both TikTok and its Chinese parent company
are “sometimes so closely entwined that it is unclear where TikTok stops and ByteDance begins.”
I just hope it ends...with you deleting TikTok from your phone.
And this episode has been sponsored by Incogni.
Because it’s not just TikTok that collects your information.
Wherever you do anything online, even in your internet browser,
there are tons of companies that collect your personal data.
When I signed up for Incogni,
I discovered there were 76 data brokers that potentially had my private info.
These companies collect things like your name, your email, your home address,
your social security number, or your employment history.
What are they doing with your data? Some of them are selling it to marketers who want
to sell you stuff, or put you on their email lists and send you targeted spam.
Others could be selling it to China.
And if that sounds far-fetched, it’s not. Because US federal agencies are already
secretly buying your data from these companies.
That might sound illegal, but it’s not.
The good news is, there’s Incogni. Incogni forces these data companies
to get rid of your personal data, so they can’t store it or sell it.
Just a few months after signing up, Incogni had already gotten my details removed from 19
of these data brokers, with 35 more in progress. And I didn’t have to do anything after signing up.
So check out Incogni using the link below, or go to incogni.com/uncensored.
The first 100 people to use the code UNCENSORED will get 20% off.
Get your personal data off the market with Incogni.
Once again, I’m Chris Chappell. Thanks for watching China Uncensored.