A new report says that TikTok creators’ financial data, including tax IDs and social security numbers, are stored in China, contradicting repeated assertions from TikTok that U.S. data isn’t stored in or directly accessible to China. Which could mean that the dictatorial Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has access to Americans’ and Europeans’ sensitive financial data.
From Forbes, May 30:
Over the past several years, thousands of TikTok creators and businesses around the world have given the company sensitive financial information—including their social security numbers and tax IDs—so that they can be paid by the platform.
But unbeknownst to many of them, TikTok has stored that personal financial information on servers in China that are accessible by employees there, Forbes has learned…a trove of records obtained by Forbes from multiple sources across different parts of the company reveals that highly sensitive financial and personal information about those prized users and third parties has been stored in China.
In March, while testifying to Congress, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew insisted, “American data has always been stored in Virginia and Singapore in the past, and access of this is on an as-required basis by our engineers globally.” TikTok spokesperson Alex Haurek affirmed the assertion, Forbes noted. It now appears that TikTok was hiding the fact that TikTok creators’ data is stored in China.
It’s bad enough that the TikTok CEO deceived Congress, but what is even more concerning is that this data is likely accessible to the Chinese government. In China, all companies are required to share data, including non-public data, with the CCP. Furthermore, the CCP also practices “civil-military fusion” — where everything in the economic and tech spheres is accessible to the Chinese military. The CCP even owns a board seat and financial stake in TikTok’s Chinese parent company ByteDance. All of which points toward the fact that the CCP could well be accessing sensitive data, including social security numbers and tax IDs, belonging to the American TikTok creators.
Related: EXCLUSIVE: Lawsuit Exposes How ‘CCP Actively Uses TikTok To Target Americans’
A recent “bombshell lawsuit” was filed against TikTok’s parent ByteDance by Yintao “Roger” Yu, who says he was fired from his position as head of engineering for ByteDance’s U.S. operations after he critiqued company actions to superiors. Yu insisted ByteDance pushes Chinese Communist Party (CCP) propaganda on TikTok. Based on the lawsuit, “The Chinese Communist Party ‘maintained supreme access’ to all data held by TikTok parent ByteDance, including information stored in the US,” the New York Post reported. This new Forbes report adds yet more damaging information to Yu’s allegations.
A spokesman of the anti-CCP New Federal State of China recently told me in exclusive comments to PJ Media that TikTok is engaged in “social engineering by the CCP to weaken America from within by corrupting its youth.” But it appears TikTok is also a convenient source of sensitive financial data for the genocidal and anti-American CCP.
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