Enlarge (credit score: Celina Pereira by way of Monetary Occasions)

One night in late December final 12 months, I obtained a cryptic cellphone name from a PR director at TikTok, the favored social media app. I’d written extensively in regards to the firm for the Monetary Occasions, so we’d spoken earlier than. Nevertheless it was puzzling to listen to from her simply earlier than the vacations, particularly since I wasn’t engaged on something associated to the corporate on the time.

The decision lasted lower than a minute. She wished me to know, “as a courtesy,” that The New York Occasions had simply printed a narrative I should learn. Confused by this uncommon bespoke information alert, I requested why. However all she stated was that it involved an inquiry at ByteDance, TikTok’s Chinese language father or mother firm, and that I ought to name her again as soon as I’d learn it.

The story claimed ByteDance workers accessed two reporters’ knowledge via their TikTok accounts. Private info, together with their bodily areas, had been used as a part of an try to search out the writers’ sources, after a collection of damaging tales about ByteDance. Based on the report, two workers in China and two within the US left the corporate following an inside investigation. In a workers memo, ByteDance’s chief govt lamented the incident because the “misconduct of some people.”