Regarding the surveillance issue, TikTok admitted that it had inappropriately accessed data belonging to US users, including journalists from Forbes and the Financial Times, as part of an effort to find leakers. TikTok and ByteDance said they fired everyone involved in the operation.

As I previously reported, the initiative was led by TikTok’s hyper-aggressive internal security team, which drew criticism from many employees at TikTok. The sources I spoke to indicated the team was mostly staffed by former US and European law enforcement officials.