Report: TikTok Is Hiring to Help Crack Down on Leaks
Christian Hetrick is dot.LA's Entertainment Tech Reporter. He was formerly a business reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer and reported on New Jersey politics for the Observer and the Press of Atlantic City.
Recent leaks to the media have raised fresh questions about how TikTok handles U.S. data, with some in Washington worried that Americans’ information could fall into the hands of China.
TikTok says it is beefing up security to protect U.S. data, but the company is hardening its defenses against something else, too: more damaging leaks.
The Culver City-based social media giant is hiring for two security roles focused on thwarting insider leaks, according to Business Insider. The new hires would keep an eye on TikTok staffers to spot leaks of classified information to the press or trade secrets to rival firms or bad actors, experts told the news outlet.
TikTok’s job postings come as the video sharing platform is facing mounting scrutiny. BuzzFeed News obtained leaked audio clips indicating that American data was accessed repeatedly by China-based employees of TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance. That report renewed worries that TikTok’s Chinese ownership poses a national security risk. More recently, a Gizmodo story detailed the ways TikTok tries to publicly downplay its Chinese ownership. Just this week, reports emerged about poor working conditions for some TikTok moderators.
Large companies monitoring their employees is not uncommon these days, especially if those firms have precious data and intellectual property. One of the two TikTok job postings, for example, is for a “counterintelligence analyst” based in Washington. A quick Linkedin search for that job title pulled up dozens of similar open roles at other companies in sectors including cyberspace and IT. Insider noted that banking behemoth JPMorgan Chase collects troves of data on its workforce, which has understandably concerned some staffers.
Leakers have helped reveal important but damning information about big tech companies. Perhaps most notably, former Facebook staffer Frances Hauguen gave the Wall Street Journal documents showing the social media firm was aware that its platform harms users. The BuzzFeed story about TikTok’s handling of user data have prompted calls for a federal investigation or outright ban of the video sharing app (TikTok says it has never provided any U.S. user data to the Chinese government, nor would it do so if asked).
The two new security roles will be on TikTok’s newly established U.S. Data Security (USDS) division, according to the company. In addition to leaks to reporters, the security team may contend with employees potentially sharing information with rival companies or foriegn governments trying to influence the platform, Insider noted.
TikTok declined to comment on the record, but pointed dot.LA to company blog posts about the newly created USDS team. In July, TikTok said it created the USDS in part to help reduce employees' access to U.S. data and cut down on that data being transferred from one region to another, including to China.
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Christian Hetrick is dot.LA's Entertainment Tech Reporter. He was formerly a business reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer and reported on New Jersey politics for the Observer and the Press of Atlantic City.
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