TikTok’s Transparency Campaign Echoes Effort by Huawei to Ease Security Concerns

Company officials also highlighted computer stations that displayed a code simulator for visitors to explore the app’s algorithms and learn more about the factors that influence which videos the app serves to users.

The center, which TikTok began working on in 2020, is designed to give an up-close, in-person experience that goes the beyond virtual tours the company has given to hundreds of regulators and lawmakers, said Chief Operating Officer

Vanessa Pappas.

The tour comes as TikTok has been publicizing its plan to silo off its U.S. operations and have third parties monitor them. The proposal was designed to assuage U.S. officials and lawmakers, who have said they are concerned the Chinese government could force the app’s owner, Beijing-based ByteDance Ltd., to spy on American users or to influence which videos they see.

TikTok executives want to keep the app operating in the U.S. under Chinese ownership. But some Biden administration officials and members of Congress, skeptical that the company’s proposal addresses their concerns, are pushing to either ban TikTok in the U.S. or force its sale to an American company.

TikTok’s plan would put much of its American operations in a U.S.-based subsidiary with 2,500 employees, all subject to a set of U.S. government requirements. The subsidiary would report to a three-person board approved by the Biden administration. In addition, software giant

Oracle Corp.

and third-party monitors could monitor the system that determines what videos get recommended to app users.

The situation for TikTok, a consumer service wildly popular with Americans, differs in significant ways from that of Huawei, a telecom-equipment giant that didn’t have significant business in the U.S. But the companies are grappling with similar concerns that Chinese authorities could compel them to use their products to undermine U.S. security.

TikTok’s strategy has echoes of a tactic that Huawei used in Europe as it tried to address U.S.-led concerns that Beijing could order Huawei to spy or conduct cyberattacks.

In the U.K., Huawei and British officials set up the Huawei Cyber Security Evaluation Center in Oxfordshire, England, in 2010. Its stated goal was to mitigate any perceived risks from using the company’s products in the U.K. Employees were to inspect Huawei hardware and software for cybersecurity holes before they were used in U.K. telecom networks.

The Huawei center’s employees need government security clearances. The board overseeing it is led by the head of the U.K.’s cybersecurity agency and has other directors, including government officials and Huawei representatives.

In annual reports, the board has flagged cybersecurity vulnerabilities. The 2019 report, for example, said the board wasn’t confident that the evaluation center was examining the same products actually used in U.K. networks.

Huawei said at the time it would work to address the issues. A Huawei spokesman declined to comment this week.

“Having an evaluation cell like that depends very very much on trust, but also making sure that what they give you to evaluate is what they’re using,” said

Alan Woodward,

a University of Surrey computer scientist who previously worked for the U.K. government.

TikTok executives in their proposal have said that Oracle would need to sign off on TikTok’s code in order for it to operate.

The future of Huawei’s evaluation center is unclear. After Washington pressured London, the U.K. government announced in 2020 that U.K. telecom operators must remove Huawei 5G equipment by 2027.

Huawei in 2019 opened what it called the Cyber Security Transparency Center in Brussels, home to the headquarters of the European Union. A Huawei executive said at the opening ceremony that the center would showcase the company’s cybersecurity practices and let telecom operators test its products.

Theresa Fallon,

founder of the Center for Russia Europe Asia Studies, a Brussels-based think tank, visited the center in May 2019. She said it presented “sophisticated spin” that didn’t ease her skepticism that Huawei could turn down a request from the Chinese government.

Ms. Pappas, TikTok’s operating chief, said the company started working on its Culver City center in 2020. The pandemic delayed bringing visitors on site, though she said TikTok has given virtual tours to hundreds of regulators and lawmakers.

Visitors can look at a video frame by frame to assess whether it violates TikTok’s rules, or view an explanation of how the company determines which videos to serve to people. Visitors who sign a nondisclosure agreement, pass through a metal detector and put their phones in storage lockers can enter an adjacent room with TikTok servers where the company says they can review source code.

TikTok also this week shared more details about how the app’s moderation and recommendation systems operate, including a “strike” system for content that it deems to violate the rules. TikTok said that such posts will accrue a strike each time the company detects and removes them, and added that the app will ban accounts that earn three strikes for breaking the same rule. TikTok said it would continue to issue permanent bans on the first strike for what it considers to be severe violations.

A coming feature will display the “account status” for users who want to view the standing of their account and a “report records” page where users can see the status of reports they have made on other content or accounts, TikTok said. Users already receive notifications if they have violated company policies.

TikTok also said it would be testing a feature to try to help users break out of niche rabbit holes of content on the app. When the users in this test tap Refresh in their app, TikTok will serve them more-diversified content not based on their previous activity on the app.

Suzy Loftus,

the company’s global head of risk and response and trust and safety, said her job is to make sure TikTok’s more than one billion users around the world feel safe using the app.

“We face very significant headwinds in the trust space,” Ms. Loftus said. “We recognize that as an opportunity to do better.”

TikTok is building more of these transparency and accountability centers in some of its other large offices, including in Washington, D.C., Dublin and Singapore.

Write to Georgia Wells at [email protected] and Stu Woo at [email protected]

Company officials also highlighted computer stations that displayed a code simulator for visitors to explore the app’s algorithms and learn more about the factors that influence which videos the app serves to users.

The center, which TikTok began working on in 2020, is designed to give an up-close, in-person experience that goes the beyond virtual tours the company has given to hundreds of regulators and lawmakers, said Chief Operating Officer

Vanessa Pappas.

The tour comes as TikTok has been publicizing its plan to silo off its U.S. operations and have third parties monitor them. The proposal was designed to assuage U.S. officials and lawmakers, who have said they are concerned the Chinese government could force the app’s owner, Beijing-based ByteDance Ltd., to spy on American users or to influence which videos they see.

TikTok executives want to keep the app operating in the U.S. under Chinese ownership. But some Biden administration officials and members of Congress, skeptical that the company’s proposal addresses their concerns, are pushing to either ban TikTok in the U.S. or force its sale to an American company.

TikTok’s plan would put much of its American operations in a U.S.-based subsidiary with 2,500 employees, all subject to a set of U.S. government requirements. The subsidiary would report to a three-person board approved by the Biden administration. In addition, software giant

Oracle Corp.

and third-party monitors could monitor the system that determines what videos get recommended to app users.

The situation for TikTok, a consumer service wildly popular with Americans, differs in significant ways from that of Huawei, a telecom-equipment giant that didn’t have significant business in the U.S. But the companies are grappling with similar concerns that Chinese authorities could compel them to use their products to undermine U.S. security.

TikTok’s strategy has echoes of a tactic that Huawei used in Europe as it tried to address U.S.-led concerns that Beijing could order Huawei to spy or conduct cyberattacks.

In the U.K., Huawei and British officials set up the Huawei Cyber Security Evaluation Center in Oxfordshire, England, in 2010. Its stated goal was to mitigate any perceived risks from using the company’s products in the U.K. Employees were to inspect Huawei hardware and software for cybersecurity holes before they were used in U.K. telecom networks.

The Huawei center’s employees need government security clearances. The board overseeing it is led by the head of the U.K.’s cybersecurity agency and has other directors, including government officials and Huawei representatives.

In annual reports, the board has flagged cybersecurity vulnerabilities. The 2019 report, for example, said the board wasn’t confident that the evaluation center was examining the same products actually used in U.K. networks.

Huawei said at the time it would work to address the issues. A Huawei spokesman declined to comment this week.

“Having an evaluation cell like that depends very very much on trust, but also making sure that what they give you to evaluate is what they’re using,” said

Alan Woodward,

a University of Surrey computer scientist who previously worked for the U.K. government.

TikTok executives in their proposal have said that Oracle would need to sign off on TikTok’s code in order for it to operate.

The future of Huawei’s evaluation center is unclear. After Washington pressured London, the U.K. government announced in 2020 that U.K. telecom operators must remove Huawei 5G equipment by 2027.

Huawei in 2019 opened what it called the Cyber Security Transparency Center in Brussels, home to the headquarters of the European Union. A Huawei executive said at the opening ceremony that the center would showcase the company’s cybersecurity practices and let telecom operators test its products.

Theresa Fallon,

founder of the Center for Russia Europe Asia Studies, a Brussels-based think tank, visited the center in May 2019. She said it presented “sophisticated spin” that didn’t ease her skepticism that Huawei could turn down a request from the Chinese government.

Ms. Pappas, TikTok’s operating chief, said the company started working on its Culver City center in 2020. The pandemic delayed bringing visitors on site, though she said TikTok has given virtual tours to hundreds of regulators and lawmakers.

Visitors can look at a video frame by frame to assess whether it violates TikTok’s rules, or view an explanation of how the company determines which videos to serve to people. Visitors who sign a nondisclosure agreement, pass through a metal detector and put their phones in storage lockers can enter an adjacent room with TikTok servers where the company says they can review source code.

TikTok also this week shared more details about how the app’s moderation and recommendation systems operate, including a “strike” system for content that it deems to violate the rules. TikTok said that such posts will accrue a strike each time the company detects and removes them, and added that the app will ban accounts that earn three strikes for breaking the same rule. TikTok said it would continue to issue permanent bans on the first strike for what it considers to be severe violations.

A coming feature will display the “account status” for users who want to view the standing of their account and a “report records” page where users can see the status of reports they have made on other content or accounts, TikTok said. Users already receive notifications if they have violated company policies.

TikTok also said it would be testing a feature to try to help users break out of niche rabbit holes of content on the app. When the users in this test tap Refresh in their app, TikTok will serve them more-diversified content not based on their previous activity on the app.

Suzy Loftus,

the company’s global head of risk and response and trust and safety, said her job is to make sure TikTok’s more than one billion users around the world feel safe using the app.

“We face very significant headwinds in the trust space,” Ms. Loftus said. “We recognize that as an opportunity to do better.”

TikTok is building more of these transparency and accountability centers in some of its other large offices, including in Washington, D.C., Dublin and Singapore.

Write to Georgia Wells at [email protected] and Stu Woo at [email protected]