TikTok accused of tracking targeted individuals, ad disinformation failures
TikTok reported to be tracking specific US citizens, while TikTok and Facebook failed to block ads containing blatant misinformation about the upcoming US midterm elections
TikTok, the social media app owned by ByteDance, has been accused of planning to track the location of specific US individuals.
In an article published last week, Forbes, claims that ByteDance has been repurposing technology it uses to keep tabs on current former employees suspected of misconduct, in order to track certain American citizens. The publication did not name individuals for fear of revealing its sources, but they had no relation to the ByteDance, according to Forbes.
TikTok responded by saying it uses location data to serve targeted ads and content ads in the same way other social media apps, to "comply with applicable laws, and detect and prevent fraud and inauthentic behaviour".
But ByteDance did not answer questions about whether its Internal Audit division specifically targeted any members of the US government, activists, public figures or journalists, Forbes said.
If true, ByteDance would not be the first tech organisation to track specific users - both Uber and Facebook have been caught doing this in the past - but the company's closeness to the Chinese government makes it an obvious cause for concern to the US authorities.
In June, the company admitted that employees in China could access US users' data, although it blamed that on a security oversight.
In August, the UK government shut its TikTok account citing security concerns.
TokTok's in-app browser was also found by researchers to be capable of tracking anything the user types on their device, an accusation that has also been levelled at Meta's Facebook.
TikTok and Facebook fail to block ads containing disinformation
Facebook and TikTok have also been accused of failing to block ads containing deliberate misinformation. Disinformation is currently of particular concern in the US due to upcoming midterm elections in the country.
The accusations are the result of an investigation by NGO Global Witness and New York University's Cybersecurity for Democracy researchers, who attempted to post 20 ads with misinformation to Facebook, TikTok and YouTube.
TikTok accepted 90% of the ads, which featured "blatantly" misleading information about voting procedures and dates of the election, the researchers said. Facebook accepted a significant number in both English and Spanish. However, YouTube a clean bill of health after it rejected all the misleading ads and closed one of the channels set up to push them.
"Coming up with the tech and then washing their hands of the impact is just not responsible behaviour from these massive companies that are raking in the dollars," said Jon Lloyd, senior advisor at Global Witness said in a statement.
"It is high time they got their houses in order and started properly resourcing the detection and prevention of disinformation, before it's too late. Our democracy rests on their willingness to act."