Ex-Employees Allege TikTok-ByteDance Ties Closer Than Stated, Raising Data Privacy Concerns

• Some ex-TikTok employees claim the company's operations were more intertwined with its Chinese parent ByteDance than publicly stated, despite claims of independence.

• Ex-employees cite examples like a data scientist emailing US user data spreadsheets to Beijing colleagues in 2022.

• Concerns raised over shared internal software systems like messaging platform Lark which ByteDance teams could access.

• Ex-employees argue firewall between TikTok and ByteDance is largely cosmetic, though some say progress made recently.

• TikTok denies allegations, says it stored US user data on US servers unavailable to foreigners, but lawmakers remain skeptical.