Yintao Yu, a former executive at TikTok’s parent company ByteDance in the US, claimed in a legal filing that a committee of Communist party members accessed TikTok data that included the users’ network information, Sim card identifications and IP addresses in a bid to identify the individuals and their locations. Yu also alleged in the filing that Beijing-based ByteDance maintained a “backdoor channel” for the party to access US user data.
It is sad that (i) we are not surprised at all, and (ii) the whistleblowing changes nothing for the people on Hong Kong.
Whistle blowing is necessary but not sufficient to bring change.