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Tag: BuzzFeed News

  • Leaked Meetings Show TikTok Shares US User Data With China

    Leaked Meetings Show TikTok Shares US User Data With China

    TikTok is once again under fire for its privacy policies, with leaked meeting recordings showing the company is reneging on a major promise.

    Leaked recordings of some 80 internal TikTok meetings have once again blown the lid off TikTok’s privacy claims, showing the company’s engineers in China had access to US user data at least as recently as January 2022.

    “Everything is seen in China,” said a member of TikTok’s Trust and Safety department in a September 2021 meeting, according to BuzzFeed News, the outlet that broke the story.

    TikTok has been the social media star of the last couple of years, becoming one of China’s biggest tech hits on explosive growth. Despite its growth, the platform has consistently come under scrutiny for its privacy practices. The company has run afoul of EU privacy laws, been accused of violating child privacy on multiple occasions, found sending job applicant data to China, and encouraged its moderators to censor content from “users deemed too ugly, poor, or disabled for the platform.”

    Read more: Multiple States Investigate TikTok’s Impact on Children

    Amazingly, through all of this, the company had maintained that it does not share US user data with China, even swearing in testimony before a Senate hearing that it was only a US team that decided where US user data was handled. According to BuzzFeed News, nothing could be further from the truth.

    After reviewing the meeting records, BuzzFeed News found “14 statements from nine different TikTok employees indicating that engineers in China had access to US data between September 2021 and January 2022, at the very least.”

    Despite the TikTok executive’s Senate testimony about the “world-renowned, US-based security team” that decided how data was handled, the meeting recordings show that US staff had neither the know-how or the permission to handle the data on their own, forcing them to turn to their counterparts in China.

    This latest revelation will likely lead to further investigations and possible sanctions against the company, especially since the evidence suggests the company’s executive lied to the Senate.

    While TikTok narrowly managed to avoid being banned from the US or forced to sell its US assets, under the Trump administration, its luck may be on the verge of running out.

  • BuzzFeed Going Public

    BuzzFeed Going Public

    BuzzFeed has announced it is going public through a SPAC deal, merging with 890 5th Avenue Partners, Inc.

    BuzzFeed was once primarily known as a source for pop culture content, listicles and the like. In recent years, however, the site has increasingly moved into serious journalism, even winning a Pulitzer Prize in 2021. As part of its ambition, the company acquired HuffPost from Verizon in November 2020.

    The company has now confirmed plans to go public by merging with 890 5th Avenue Partners in a SPAC deal. Merging with a SPAC (special purpose acquisition company) is a popular alternative to an IPO, avoiding some of the normal regulatory scrutiny and providing more certainty regarding valuation.

    “BuzzFeed is now the undeniable leader for the next generation of media. We’ve built a slate of essential brands, loved by the most diverse, engaged, and loyal audience on the Internet,” Jonah Peretti, BuzzFeed’s Founder and CEO said. “With today’s announcement, we’re taking the next step in BuzzFeed’s evolution, bringing capital and additional experience to our business. I am thrilled to have Adam [Adam Rothstein, Executive Chairman of 890,] join our team as we work towards becoming the world’s preeminent digital media company.”

    The deal is expected to close in Q4 2021.

  • Amazon Accused of Illegally Firing Employee Over Working Conditions

    Amazon Accused of Illegally Firing Employee Over Working Conditions

    The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has accused Amazon of illegally firing an employee advocating for better working conditions.

    On the heels of news the NLRB accused Google of illegally spying on and firing employees, not to mention its firing of Timnit Gebru, Amazon is now in hot water too.

    Amazon has already made headlines for aggressively working against unionization efforts, even going so far as to hire Pinkertons to monitor employees suspected of organizing. At least six employees claim they were fired in the spring over their efforts to improve working conditions.

    According to BuzzFeed News, however, the NLRB has found that one of those employees, Courtney Bowden, has a legitimate case. In fact, “the agency found merit in her allegations that Amazon threatened, suspended, and ultimately terminated her because she had been talking with coworkers at an Amazon warehouse in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, about pay and other workplace issues, which is a legally protected activity.” At least one of those issues was providing sick pay for part-time employees.

    The case will now go before an administrative law judge March 9, 2021. Given Amazon’s history, its recent actions and the NLRB’s findings, it seems likely the judge may find in Bowden’s favor.

    Either way, this has not been a good week for Big Tech and employee relations.

  • Facebook’s Zuckerberg Not Happy With TikTok Ban

    Facebook’s Zuckerberg Not Happy With TikTok Ban

    Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has expressed his concerns about an upcoming ban of social media app TikTok.

    TikTok has become widely popular around the world, and has been the big winner among social media platforms during the pandemic. Some might think a TikTok ban would be in Facebook’s best interest, but that isn’t how Zuckerberg sees it.

    According to BuzzFeed News, Zuckerberg said: “A lot of people are out there saying that this helps Facebook and my reaction to that is only in the most narrow sense. Yes, they are a competitor this year, and this month, next month maybe our engagement will go up. Maybe it will make Reels a little bit easier just to roll out. But you don’t run a company for the next month or the next quarter.”

    Zuckerberg is evidently concerned that banning TikTok sets a bad precedent that could one day be used by other countries to ban Facebook. It remains to be seen if a ban will actually happen, as the ban isn’t set to take effect until September 15. In the meantime, Microsoft is working to purchase TikTok’s US operations. Should that happen, the precedent Zuckerberg is worried about may never come to pass.

  • Clearview AI App Disabled On the App Store

    Clearview AI App Disabled On the App Store

    Clearview AI’s troubles continue to mount, with the company’s app being disabled on the App Store for violating Apple’s rules.

    Buzzfeed News first noticed that Clearview was doing an end-run around Apple’s distribution rules, “encouraging those who want to use the software to download its app through a program reserved exclusively for developers.” Buzzfeed contacted Apple to inquire about the situation, prompting Apple to investigate. As a result of their investigation, Apple suspended Clearview’s developer account, preventing the app from functioning. Apple told Buzzfeed the developer program Clearview was using is only for distributing apps within a company, not the kind of widescale distribution Clearview was using it for.

    In statement obtained by Buzzfeed, Clearview CEO Hoan Ton-That said: “We are in contact with Apple and working on complying with their terms and conditions. The app can not be used without a valid Clearview account. A user can download the app, but not perform any searches without proper authorization and credentials.”

    Clearview has been on an impressive streak of earning the disfavor of politicians, corporations, privacy advocates, journalists and citizens alike. The company has scraped millions of websites to amass a facial recognition database of some three billion photos, in the process violating the terms of service for industry giants like Google, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. The company has been accused of monitoring how police are using the app to discourage them from interacting with journalists. Clearview was suspected of planning worldwide expansion, including to oppressive regimes, only to have its client list stolen, which showed it has already moved forward with those plans.

    Now the company has managed to violate Apple’s rules about how developers can or cannot distribute apps. Given the company’s shady practices, it’s a safe bet no one will be shedding a tear over this one.

  • Clearview AI Expanding Internationally—With Authoritarian Regimes

    Clearview AI Expanding Internationally—With Authoritarian Regimes

    In further proof that Clearview AI can’t be trusted, BuzzFeed News is reporting the facial recognition firm is planning on selling its services to authoritarian regimes.

    Clearview claims to have scraped over 3 billion photos from millions of websites, including the major social media platforms. The company then makes those photos available, in a searchable database, to hundreds of law enforcement agencies across the country.

    According to BuzzFeed, “a document obtained via a public records request reveals that Clearview has been touting a ‘rapid international expansion’ to prospective clients using a map that highlights how it either has expanded, or plans to expand, to at least 22 more countries, some of which have committed human rights abuses.”

    Three of the countries are the United Arab Emirates, which is known for cracking down on dissidents, as well as Qatar and Singapore, both of which have far more restrictive human rights laws than Western countries.

    In an interview with BuzzFeed, Albert Fox Cahn, a fellow at New York University and the executive director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, expressed concern about the implications of the software being used by oppressive regimes.

    “It’s deeply alarming that they would sell this technology in countries with such a terrible human rights track record, enabling potentially authoritarian behavior by other nations,” he said.

    Clearview CEO Hoan Ton-That has been defending his company amid growing scrutiny and concern over the legality and ethics of its behavior. The New Jersey Attorney General recently enacted a moratorium on police departments using the company’s service. Twitter, Facebook, Google and YouTube have sent cease-and-desist letters to Clearview. Now, as lawmakers increasingly turn their attention toward the company, it’s a safe bet this latest news will not help Clearview’s case.