ByteDance, the parent company of the popular social media app TikTok, is allegedly using a tool to monitor mentions of specific words on the platform, according to a recent investigation by Forbes. The tool, which is reportedly run by staff in China, not only tracks the usage of certain words but also records who mentions them and their location.
The Forbes investigation is based on internal documents obtained by the publication, which include ByteDance’s library of “sensitive” words. Some of these words are political in nature, such as those related to Uyghurs, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, while others pertain to the COVID-19 pandemic and China, with specific focus on the lab leak theory. ByteDance has declined to comment on the purpose of monitoring these words.
The internal documents reveal that some words are marked as “must kill,” “forbidden,” or “prohibited,” suggesting that ByteDance might suppress the spread of certain information on TikTok.
In a separate development, The Wall Street Journal reported that, according to former employees, TikTok was tracking users who watched gay content. These former employees claimed that some personnel could internally access a dashboard displaying users who had watched videos in the LGBT category.
Employees in the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia reportedly expressed concern about the sensitivity of this information in 2020 and 2021, fearing that it could be shared outside the company. A TikTok spokesperson stated that the dashboard for this data was deleted in the United States approximately a year ago.
As TikTok continues to amass millions of users worldwide, questions surrounding freedom of speech and user privacy on the platform persist. Calls to ban or restrict the app in the United States continue to grow.
