“TikTok Employees Spied on British Journalist through Private Cat Account”

TikTok employees followed a British journalist to find which TikTok employees she spoke to for her articles on the social medium. That happened through a private account of her cat.

Four TikTok employees followed Financial Times journalist Christina Criddle through the account she maintains for her cat, reports the BBC. It concerns two employees in the US and two in China. They traced the account’s IP address to find out which TikTok employees she was physically close to to find the anonymous sources of her stories.

Criddle’s account was not linked to her name or her occupation. The account had around 170 followers last year. Parent company ByteDance admits it spied on Criddle. “We deeply regret this significant breach of our own code of conduct,” the company told the BBC. “We are working to make sure this never happens again.” ByteDance said it had already fired the employees involved.

The ByteDance staff must have figured out which account belonged to Criddle and then tracked the corresponding IP addresses to find the anonymous sources. A security expert tells the BBC that this form of tracking “cannot be described as accidental or incidental.”