It seems that crises do not come singly on Tik Tok, as the US Department of Justice has begun an investigation into the possible involvement of the famous application in spying on prominent journalists in the country!
Sources familiar with the matter reported that the journalists targeted cover technology.
The sources also indicated that the investigation, which began late last year, is linked to ByteDance’s admission in December that its employees improperly obtained the data of American TikTok users, including two journalists and a few of their associates, according to the New York Times.
Documents and leaks
The ByteDance employees involved in this surveillance, who were later fired, apparently tried to find leaks of internal conversations and business documents to the journalists. They had already accessed the IP addresses and other data of the messengers and people they were connected to through their TikTok accounts.
For its part, the parent company of TikTok confirmed that it is making changes to prevent such violations from occurring in the future.
Tik Tok (AFP)
But all those reassurances have done little to mitigate growing demands by politicians in the US and elsewhere to ban the app!
A few days ago, the US administration asked ByteDance to sell its shares in the widespread application or face its ban in America.
The Republican and Democratic parties also supported a bill in the US Senate that would allow President Joe Biden to ban TikTok.
Several countries, including America, Canada, Britain and New Zealand, banned politicians from downloading and using the application on their phones during their government work.