The investigation comes as the Biden administration is demanding TikTok’s Chinese-owned parent company, ByteDance, sell the video-sharing app or see it banned in the United States.
WASHINGTON
— The Department of Justice and FBI are investigating TikTok and its parent
company ByteDance, including previously disclosed allegations that the
company's employees spied on journalists, a law enforcement official with
knowledge of the matter said Friday.
The investigation
is being conducted by Justice Department prosecutors in Washington and in the
Eastern District of Virginia, along with the FBI, the officials said.
The DOJ
and FBI declined to comment.
In
response, a ByteDance spokesperson told NBC, "We have strongly condemned
the actions of the individuals found to have been involved, and they are no
longer employed at ByteDance. Our internal investigation is still ongoing, and
we will cooperate with any official investigations when brought to us."
News
about the probe was first reported on Thursday by Forbes, which said the
employees implicated in the surveillance were fired after it was confirmed they
were trying to find the sources of leaks to journalists from inside the
company. A ByteDance investigation found that the employees gained access to
the IP addresses and other data of the reporters and some of their contacts
connected to them through their TikTok accounts, Forbes reported.
The
federal investigation into ByteDance comes as concern over the security threats
to Americans related to TikTok has intensified this week. The Biden
administration has threatened a potential ban on the popular social media app
in the U.S. if its Chinese owners refuse to sell their stakes in it, a source
close to the company told NBC News on Thursday. That came after U.S.
intelligence officials expressed concerns that China can use TikTok to spy on
Americans or influence U.S. public opinion.
Asked
what message the White House is sending to TikTok users in the U.S., press
secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters on Thursday, "We’ve expressed
concerns over China’s potential use of software platforms that could endanger
or threaten America’s safety and their national security. So that is the
president’s concern. That is why we have called on Congress to take
action."
Jean-Pierre
reiterated that a group of federal agencies are currently conducting a review
of TikTok's software.
Biden
backs legislation introduced earlier this month by a bipartisan group of
senators that would allow the federal government to regulate and ban
foreign-produced technology, including TikTok.
The bill
would give the secretary of commerce the power to regulate tech produced by six
countries that have adversarial relationships with the U.S.: China, Cuba, Iran,
North Korea, Russia and Venezuela.
On
Capitol Hill, there is an appetite to address the issue, although it's not
clear how far lawmakers are willing to go.
Asked
Friday if he believes TikTok represents a national security risk, Speaker Kevin
McCarthy said, “Yes.”
**Ken
Dilanian is the justice and intelligence correspondent for NBC News, based in
Washington.
***Rebecca
Shabad is a politics reporter for NBC News based in Washington.