AI Incident Database: ByteDance Allegedly Trained "For You" Algorithm Using Content Scraped without Consent from Other Social Platforms
ByteDance allegedly scraped short-form videos, usernames, profile pictures, and descriptions of accounts on Instagram, Snapchat, and other sources, and uploaded them without consent on Flipagram, TikTok’s predecessor, in order to improve its “For You” algorithm's performance on American users.
AI Incident Database · Incident 190Operator lens (medium): inspect D3 (data handling), D8 (provider fallback).
Event summary
ByteDance allegedly scraped short-form videos, usernames, profile pictures, and descriptions of accounts on Instagram, Snapchat, and other sources, and uploaded them without consent on Flipagram, TikTok’s predecessor, in order to improve its “For You” algorithm's performance on American users.
Linked entities
- bytedance
organisation | 70%
- instagram-users
organisation | 70%
- snapchat-users
organisation | 70%
- american-social-media-users
organisation | 70%
Related graph edges
| Edge | Type | Confidence |
|---|---|---|
| ent-aiid-bytedance to ent-psf-d2 | maps to | 60% |
| ent-aiid-bytedance to ent-psf-d2 | maps to | 60% |
| ent-aiid-bytedance to ent-psf-d2 | maps to | 60% |
| ent-aiid-bytedance to ent-psf-d3 | maps to | 60% |
| ent-aiid-bytedance to ent-psf-d3 | maps to | 60% |
| ent-aiid-bytedance to ent-psf-d3 | maps to | 60% |
| ent-aiid-bytedance to ent-psf-d6 | maps to | 60% |
| ent-aiid-bytedance to ent-psf-d6 | maps to | 60% |
| ent-aiid-bytedance to ent-psf-d6 | maps to | 60% |
| ent-aiid-bytedance to ent-psf-d3 | maps to | 60% |
| ent-aiid-bytedance to ent-psf-d3 | maps to | 60% |
| ent-aiid-bytedance to ent-psf-d3 | maps to | 60% |