Story thread · 2 reports / 2 sources

Insiders blow lid off 'sweetheart' deal TikTok reached with Trump DOJ

rawstory.com · 14dShare

The Justice Department's $400 million settlement with TikTok quietly resolved more than the child-safety claims it publicized — it also erased a federal monitoring requirement and left unaddressed a far more alarming allegation that never made it into the case. A former Federal Trade Commission official told the New York Post that investigators had uncovered evidence TikTok exposed American users' personal data, including Social Security and bank account numbers, on an internal messaging system accessible to employees in China. "We knew that China-based employees accessed information contained within this messaging service that included American users' personally identifiable information," the former official said. But that finding never appeared in the DOJ's lawsuit, which focused instead on accounts belonging to children under 13. Of the $400 million total settlement, $300 million resolved the child-privacy claims themselves. The remaining $100 million paid to vacate a 2019 consent o

First report: DOJ’s ‘sweetheart’ $400M settlement with TikTok puzzles DC insiders: ‘How did you get to that number?’ — nypost.com, 14d