TikTok says it’s storing US data domestically amid renewed security concerns

TikTok says it’s achieved a “significant milestone” toward its promises to beef up the security of its US users’ data. In a new update, the company says it has “changed the default storage location of US user data.”

As the company notes, it had already stored much of its user data in the United States, at a Virginia-based data center. But under a new partnership with Oracle, the company has migrated US user traffic to a new Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.

“Today, 100% of US user traffic is being routed to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure,” the company wrote in a blog post. “We still use our US and Singapore data centers for backup, but as we continue our work we expect to delete US users’ private data from our own data centers and fully pivot to Oracle cloud servers located in the US.” Additionally, TikTok says it has made “operational changes,” including a new department “with US-based leadership, to solely manage US user data for TikTok.”

The moves are part of a longstanding effort by TikTok to address US officials’ concerns over how user data is handled by TikTok and parent company ByteDance. The company has been working to separate US user data so that it’s not accessible to China-based ByteDance as US lawmakers eye legislation to curb the influence of Chinese tech companies.

Still, the new safeguards are unlikely to fully sway critics of TikTok, who say the company still hasn’t addressed all potential concerns about how US user data is handled. In fact, just after TikTok published its blog post, BuzzFeed Newspublished a report that raises new questions about how the company handles the data of its US users.

The report, which was based on hours of internal meetings leaked to BuzzFeed, says that “China-based employees of ByteDance have repeatedly accessed nonpublic data about US TikTok users.” The recordings, which cover a time period between last September and January 2022, offer new details about the complex effort to cut off Bytedance’s access to US user data.

The report quotes an outside consultant hired by TikTok to oversee some of the work saying that they believed there was “backdoor to access user data in almost all” of the company’s internal tools. It also quotes statements from several employees who say “that engineers in China had access to US data between September 2021 and January 2022, at the very least.”

It also notes that while data deemed “sensitive,” like users’ birth dates and phone numbers, will be stored in the Oracle servers, other information about US-based users could remain accessible to ByteDance. “ByteDance’s China-based employees could continue to have access to insights about what American TikTok users are interested in, from cat videos to political beliefs,” the report says.

That may not seem as serious as more personal information like birthdays and phone numbers, but it’s exactly the kind of details that some lawmakers in the US have raised concerns about. US officials have questioned whether the app’s “For You” algorithm could be used as a means of foreign influence.

“We know we’re among the most scrutinized platforms from a security standpoint, and we aim to remove any doubt about the security of US user data,” TikTok said in a statement to BuzzFeed News.

Instagram is testing a new full-screen TikTok-like feed

Instagram is testing a new full-screen version of Instagram’s feed that would make scrolling through posts look and feel a lot more like TikTok. Mark Zuckerberg shared a preview of the test on his Instagram Story, saying that the new look would be available to some people “soon.”

The app began testing a version of a “full-screen” feed last month, but in that test feed posts didn’t actually take up the entire screen of the app. But with the latest version shared by Zuckerberg, posts extend all the way to the top of the screen, much as they do on TikTok. The new look also tweaks the shortcuts for accessing your inbox and creating new posts.

Though still an experiment, the new look is in-line with Meta’s stated desire to make competing with TikTok a top priority. On instagram, that’s meant inserting more Reels and “suggested” content into users feed, as well as emphasizing video more than static images. “Photos are still an important part of Instagram, and we’re working on ways to improve the way they show up in a full-screen Feed too,” Zuckerberg wrote.

Meta is also planning a major revamp of Facebook’s app that would insert more “recommended” content in users’ feeds, rather than posts from friends and pages they follow. Zuckerberg has said the changes are part of broader pivot toward AI-driven recommendations rather than simply relying on users existing social graphs.

Facebook is planning a major redesign to help it compete with TikTok

Mark Zuckerberg and other Meta executives have made it clear for some time that competing with TikTok is their top priority. Now, we have additional details about how they plan to completely overhaul the Facebook app to accomplish that.The social netwo…

Facebook’s advertising tools are tracking people seeking abortion services, report says

Facebook is collecting data about people who visit the websites of pregnancy crisis centers, according to a report from Reveal. The findings raise questions about how that data could be misused, and Meta’s ability to enforce its advertising rules.

In an investigation conducted with The Markup, Reveal found that hundreds of crisis pregnancy centers were using the Meta Pixel on their websites. The Meta Pixel allows companies to keep tabs on who visits their websites so they can create targeted ads on Facebook. As the report notes, so-called crisis pregnancy centers typically aren’t licensed medical establishments and are not bound by HIPAA and other privacy regulations. Instead, they are “mostly run by religiously aligned organizations whose mission is to persuade people to choose an option other than abortion.” 

Under Meta’s rules, the Meta Pixel is supposed to filter out “sensitive” health data, like much of what Reveal found was being collected. “In many cases, the information was extremely sensitive – for example, whether a person was considering abortion or looking to get a pregnancy test or emergency contraceptives,” Reveal reports. In some cases, the social network also received data about specific appointments that were requested. The report also found that third-party anti-abortion marketing companies were able to gain access to data collected by the Meta Pixel, even though their websites had not been visited.

In a statement provided to Reveal, Meta said that “It is against our policies for websites and apps to send sensitive information about people through our Business Tools,” referring to the Meta Pixel. “Our system is designed to filter out potentially sensitive data it detects, and we work to educate advertisers on how to properly set up our Business Tools.”

The issue of online platforms collecting data from people seeking abortion services has taken on a new urgency in recent weeks following a leak of a draft Supreme Court opinion that would overturn Roe v. Wade. Privacy advocates have warned that the information could be used to prosecute people seeking abortions in areas where it’s been outlawed. Lawmakers have also raised concerns about the issue, calling on Apple, Google and other platforms to bar apps that collect data targeting people seeking abortion services.