The top Republican on the Senate Intel Committee has asked DOJ to investigate statements that the TikTok CEO made to Congress, in light of recent reporting by Forbes:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexandralevine/2023/06/01/tiktok-ceo-justice-department-investigation-china-security/?sh=654ea3a31927

For the magazine (my first cover story!), we profiled Lisa Su, CEO of semiconductor company AMD, who has led one of the greatest comebacks in Silicon Valley history. Now she's taking on Nvidia, the top dog in AI chips.

With my colleague Iain Martin.

NEW: TikTok has stored the most sensitive financial info of its biggest stars on servers in China.

The CEO told Congress “American data has always been stored in Virginia and Singapore.”

https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexandralevine/2023/05/30/tiktok-creators-data-security-china/?sh=54d434907048

If you've ever been paid by TikTok — as a creator, or a vendor, or a business partner — your financial info (SSN, tax ID, etc) may have been stored in China. From @alexlevine.bsky.social

https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexandralevine/2023/05/30/tiktok-creators-data-security-china/?sh=78090df27048

NEW: Forbes obtained internal ByteDance documents showing *hundreds* of lists of “sensitive words” it tracks across its social media apps.

We’ve published them in full here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexandralevine/2023/05/05/tiktok-bytedance-sensitive-words-suppression-china/?sh=57d0852f69c9

TikTok and ByteDance are collecting data on the “hit rate” of "sensitive" or "prohibited" words—including info about the U.S. users posting them.

That could be dangerous: https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexandralevine/2023/05/01/tiktok-bytedance-suppression-tool-trump-china-uyghurs/?sh=41723263434c

New: Forbes found the below vocabulary lists in ByteDance's "sensitive words" tool that is run by staff in China and dictates what users can and cannot see on its platforms.

50+ lists in this tool have “TikTok” or "US" in their names. TikTok denied these ones had ever applied to TikTok:

New: ByteDance's "sensitive words" tool run by staff in China appears to use vocabulary lists to detect or suppress posts about everything from American TikTok competitors to marginalized Uighurs to Trump:

https://bit.ly/427bTHK

ByteDance has “sensitive word lists,” with names like “Trump Directed Prohibited Words” and “Special prohibited words for Xi and Peng”

Over 50 of the lists explicitly mention TikTok or the US.

TikTok denies they’ve ever been used.

From the increíble @alexlevine.bsky.social

Is this thing on?