Business and Technology
TikTok Slows Security Implementation
TikTok has put on hold a hiring process for consultants that would help it implement a potential security agreement with the United States, two people familiar with the matter said, as opposition to such a deal among U.S. officials grows.
The program involves hiring a third-party monitor, a source-code inspector, and three auditors, including one dedicated to cyber security and one to ensure that U.S. user data on existing TikTok servers will be deleted following migration to Oracle Corp, the two people familiar with the matter said.
These positions would be paid for by TikTok, but report to U.S. government officials.
TikTok informed the consultants vying for one of the roles late last month that the hiring process was on hold and that it would update them by the end of January on whether it will restart, the sources said.
In its explanation to consultants, TikTok cited "recent developments", without elaborating, one of the sources said.
A spokeswoman for TikTok confirmed it had paused the hiring process for the third-party security vendors and said this was because CFIUS has not yet approved the security agreement. TikTok had hoped it would have reached a deal by now, she added.
The spokeswoman also said that TikTok was hiring "rapidly" for data security roles that do not require security approval.
TikTok sent out requests for proposals for some of these roles in early December with an aim to put forward potential candidates for approval to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), the security panel that has been scrutinizing ByteDance's ownership of the popular app.
TikTok's decision to freeze the hiring came after its admission in December that some of its employees improperly accessed TikTok user data of two journalists in a bid to identify the source of information leaks to the media.
This unsettled some U.S. officials who were supportive of a security deal with TikTok and strengthened the hand of China hawks in the U.S. government calling for Biden to order ByteDance to divest the app, according to people familiar with the deliberations.
It remains unclear when the U.S. government will make a decision about TikTok's future.
President Joe Biden revoked an executive order in 2021 by his predecessor Donald Trump to ban TikTok in the United States, but talks between his administration and the social media company have continued over a potential deal that would spare ByteDance from being forced to divest TikTok.
Biden signed a spending bill into law last month banning federal employees - about 4 million - from using TikTok on government-issued devices, following similar bans by some states and local authorities.
U.S. lawmakers seeking to crack down on China as part of a broader set of disputes over trade, intellectual property and human rights have seized on the security concerns over TikTok to pressure the White House to take a hard line against Beijing.
TikTok has already unveiled several measures aimed at appeasing the U.S. government, including an agreement for Oracle to store user data in the United States and a U.S. security division (USDS) to oversee data protection and content moderation. It has spent $1.5 billion on hiring and reorganization to build that unit.
The headcount in the USDS division is expected to reach 2,500 for roles including engineering, security and trust and safety, more than double current levels, the spokeswoman said.
Chris Griner, a Stroock & Stroock & Lavan LLP security lawyer who is not involved in the TikTok negotiations, said TikTok's misuse of journalists' data undermined previous assurances to protect user information.
"We have done many reviews before CFIUS over decades – and trust is a critical component in successful reviews," Griner told Reuters. "Once gone, it is exceedingly hard to get it back."
TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew will meet European Union antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager in Brussels this coming week to discuss issues such as the protection of personal data by online platforms and the implementation of the EU's Digital Services Act.
See all News Updates of the Day
Africa News Tonight: ANC loses suit against Zuma’s MK party, Cameroon opposition launches voter campaign, IMF urges fiscal resilience
Africa News Tonight: Food Aid Reaches Darfur, Botswana Calls for Change in Diamond Certification, DRC Has First Female Prime Minister
Meta Closes Monitoring Tool for Disinformation, Fact-Checking
WASHINGTON—A digital tool considered vital in tracking viral falsehoods, CrowdTangle will be decommissioned by Facebook owner Meta in a major election year, a move researchers fear will disrupt efforts to detect an expected firehose of political misinformation.
The tech giant says CrowdTangle will be unavailable after August 14, less than three months before the US election. The Palo Alto company plans to replace it with a new tool that researchers say lacks the same functionality, and which news organizations will largely not have access to.
For years, CrowdTangle has been a game-changer, offering researchers and journalists crucial real-time transparency into the spread of conspiracy theories and hate speech on influential Meta-owned platforms, including Facebook and Instagram.
Killing off the monitoring tool, a move experts say is in line with a tech industry trend of rolling back transparency and security measures, is a major blow as dozens of countries hold elections this year -- a period when bad actors typically spread false narratives more than ever.
"In a year where almost half of the global population is expected to vote in elections, cutting off access to CrowdTangle will severely limit independent oversight of harms," Melanie Smith, director of research at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, told AFP.
"It represents a grave step backwards for social media platform transparency."
Meta is set to replace CrowdTangle with a new Content Library, a technology still under development.
It's a tool that some in the tech industry, including former CrowdTangle chief executive Brandon Silverman, said is currently not an effective replacement, especially in elections likely to see a proliferation of AI-enabled falsehoods.
"It's an entire new muscle" that Meta is yet to build to protect the integrity of elections, Silverman told AFP, calling for "openness and transparency."
'Direct threat'
In recent election cycles, researchers say CrowdTangle alerted them to harmful activities including foreign interference, online harassment and incitements to violence.
By its own admission, Meta — which bought CrowdTangle in 2016 — said that in 2019 elections in Louisiana, the tool helped state officials identify misinformation, such as inaccurate poll hours that had been posted online.
In the 2020 presidential vote, the company offered the tool to US election officials across all states to help them "quickly identify misinformation, voter interference and suppression."
The tool also made dashboards available to the public to track what major candidates were posting on their official and campaign pages.
Lamenting the risk of losing these functions forever, global nonprofit Mozilla Foundation demanded in an open letter to Meta that CrowdTangle be retained at least until January 2025.
"Abandoning CrowdTangle while the Content Library lacks so much of CrowdTangle's core functionality undermines the fundamental principle of transparency," said the letter signed by dozens of tech watchdogs and researchers.
The new tool lacks CrowdTangle features including robust search flexibility and decommissioning it would be a "direct threat" to the integrity of elections, it added.
Meta spokesperson Andy Stone said the letter's claims are "just wrong," insisting the Content Library will contain "more comprehensive data than CrowdTangle" and be made available to academics and non-profit election integrity experts.
'Lot of concerns'
Meta, which has been moving away from news across its platforms, will not make the new tool accessible to for-profit media.
Journalists have used CrowdTangle in the past to investigate public health crises as well as human rights abuses and natural disasters.
Meta's decision to cut off journalists comes after many used CrowdTangle to report unflattering stories, including its flailing moderation efforts and how its gaming app was overrun with pirated content.
CrowdTangle has been a crucial source of data that helped "hold Meta accountable for enforcing its policies," Tim Harper, a senior policy analyst at the Center for Democracy & Technology, told AFP.
Organizations that debunk misinformation as part of Meta's third-party fact-checking program, including AFP, will have access to the Content Library.
But other researchers and nonprofits will have to apply for access or look for expensive alternatives. Two researchers told AFP under condition of anonymity that in one-on-one meetings with Meta officials, they demanded firm commitments from company officials.
"While most fact-checkers already working with Meta will have access to the new tool, it's not super clear if many independent researchers — already worried about losing CrowdTangle's functionality — will," Carlos Hernandez-Echevarria, head of the Spanish nonprofit Maldita, told AFP.
"It has generated a lot of concerns."
Forum