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June 2, 2023

TikTok accused of lying through its teeth about storing American users' data in China

By Monica Showalter

Is TikTok lying about storing its dossiers of American users' data in China?

That's what members of Congress are accusing the social media company of, and the ones with any measure of pride are angry about it.

According to The Federalist:

A new report from Forbes alleges social media giant TikTok stores creators’ sensitive personal information, such as social security numbers and tax IDs, in China, despite previous denials by top officials in the Chinese company, including CEO Shou Zi Chew.

The Forbes report contradicts Chew’s March statement to Congress, in which he claimed under oath that TikTok keeps the personal and financial data of its U.S. users in Virginia and Singapore, and assured lawmakers “The bottom line is this: American data stored on American soil by an American company overseen by American personnel.” The CEO’s apparent perjury prompted Sen. Marco Rubio to call for a Justice Department investigation.

“TikTok’s CEO has a lot of explaining to do, but his lies aren’t a surprise,” Sen. Rubio explained to The Federalist. “TikTok lies to everyone from creators to regulators. The user data that TikTok stores in China or makes accessible to its Chinese engineers can be weaponized at any time by the Chinese Communist Party.”

This new evidence, to say nothing of Chew’s prior acknowledgment of Chinese access to American data, refusal to guarantee protections for Americans’ health information, and unwillingness to condemn the company’s past spying on American journalists, adds to a list of growing concerns over the threats posed by the Chinese Communist Party-linked app.

Which is quite a nasty picture, and pretty well makes anyone who uses TikTok look like a fool.

That would include in particular TikTok "influencers" such as Dylan Mulvaney, would-be disinformation czar, Nina Jankowicz, and Taylor Lorenz, apparently of the Washington Post, all TikTok enthusiasts who've put out extremely obnoxious and offensive videos for wide audiences. The story says that those TikTok users who've monetized the platform are the ones most significantly at risk of China misusing their data, or in other words, the "influencers."  It makes one wonder if they're susceptible for particular pressure from China to, well, influence Americans.

Here's a sampling of how obnoxious they are: 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mulvaney has reportedly made $1.5 million from his social media posts and related endorsements.

Then there's Taylor Lorenz, who seems to be a freelancer these days for The Atlantic, Rolling Stone, the New York Times, New York magazine, and others, according to her TikTok account. We had thought she was at the Washington Post, but perhaps she didn't consider that important enough.

 

 

Lorenz also defends TikTok by ridiculing its critics as liars in a previous TikTok video.

And don't forget the lesser lights of leftist lunacy, seen on Twitter from the account that Lorenz doxxed, called @LibsofTikTok.

It's almost a question of who is worse -- these godawful TikTok "influencers," or their platform's Chinese masters, who seem to have a lot of blackmailable material on them and whose leaders seem to be telling Congress the truth about their many dossiers. What we do know is no good comes of TikTok and the world would have been a better place had this operation never happened.

Sen. Rubio is right that the platform ought to be investigated for its truth-challenged statements if so much as a scintilla if evidence is true about TikTok storing Americans' data in China. The result is these internet "influencers,"  all of whom are offensive, and at least one of whom is a apologist for TikTok, according to this report in National Review. One wonders why.

Image: Twitter screen shot

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