TikTok has responded to Forbes’ charges, accusing the magazine of missing the section of its statement in which it said that it does not gather exact GPS positions. That section “disproved the viability of [the piece’s] primary assertion,” according to the explanation. TikTok also said that it has never been used to target members of the US government, public figures, activists, or journalists and that it does not provide them with material that differs from that of other users. According to Forbes, TikTok “did not respond to queries” regarding whether the internal audit team at ByteDance targeted members of such groups.
