The China-based parent company of TikTok said Thursday that an internal investigation revealed employees obtained private data of four U.S.-based tech journalists and other American users’ information.

ByteDance, the Chinese tech giant that owns the video-sharing app, was accused earlier this year of tracking multiple reporters at Forbes under a covert surveillance campaign, which led to employees gaining access to information such as the IP addresses of some TikTok users connected to the reporters.

Forbes reported that ByteDance’s Internal Audit and Risk Control department was responsible for the alleged plan to monitor the locations of specific American citizens. The person who oversees that department is Beijing-based executive Song Ye, who reports to ByteDance co-founder and CEO Rubo Liang.

“I was deeply disappointed when I was notified of the situation … and I’m sure you feel the same,” Liang said in an internal email to employees shared with Forbes. “The public trust that we have spent huge efforts building is going to be significantly undermined by the misconduct of a few individuals … I believe this situation will serve as a lesson to us all.”

The New York Times reported that two employees responsible for obtaining the data were based in China, and two others were based in the United States.

According to the NYT, the company has fired all four employees involved.

ByteDance officials said the targeted reporters included Emily Baker-White, Katharine Schwab, and Richard Nieva — all three of whom wrote for BuzzFeed and are now at Forbes — and Cristina Criddle of the Financial Times.

TikTok General Counsel Erich Andersen wrote in a second internal email shared with Forbes that internal audit groups investigating code of conduct violations are standard practices for companies.

“However, in this case, individuals misused their authority to obtain access to TikTok user data,” Andersen said.

ByteDance and TikTok did not deny the surveillance, saying the app “has never been used to ‘target’ any members of the U.S. government, activists, public figures or journalists” and that “TikTok could not monitor U.S. users in the way the article suggested.”

Growing security concerns over the social media platform have caught lawmakers’ attention recently after the Federal Communications Commission said the government agency could not regulate the social media app or control American data from flowing back to Beijing and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which requires companies to share its data upon request under the country’s 2017 National Intelligence Law.

Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) recently introduced bipartisan legislation prohibiting the video-sharing social media app from all consumer devices.

In a statement about the internal investigation, Rubio told the NYT that “no one should be surprised or fooled by ByteDance’s public apology.”

“The company is desperate to tamp down growing bipartisan concerns about how it enables the Chinese Communist Party to use — and potentially weaponize — the data of American citizens,” Rubio said. “Every day it becomes more clear that we need to ban TikTok.”

U.S. Senators unanimously passed the No TikTok on Government Devices Act, introduced by Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), last week.

“TikTok is a Trojan Horse for the Chinese Communist Party. It’s a major security risk to the United States, and until it is forced to sever ties with China completely, it has no place on government devices,” Hawley said in a statement on Thursday. “States across the U.S. are banning TikTok on government devices. It’s time for Joe Biden and the Democrats to help do the same.”

Several states in the union have also passed laws prohibiting state employees from using the app on government-owned devices.

If you haven’t watched my show today, it’s a must-watch episode regarding the man of mystery Brandan Roneel. 

As I explained recently, Roneel was a man who claimed to be a prodigious philanthropist and genius who wanted to donate to my organization Blexit a quarter of a million dollars via check back in 2020. I had dinner with him, but my husband pointed out afterward that something was amiss. After doing some digging, nothing added up about his back story.

Then, he disappeared, almost without a trace. An obituary claimed he died. Was he part of the CIA? Was he a conman? Was he really everything he said he was?

Well, among the few clues left behind was a podcast interview with somebody named Ryan Griffith.

So, what did I do? I interviewed Griffith — who similarly has a story about Roneel that will leave you floored.

The question remains, who is Brandan Roneel?

If you haven’t watched part one, click here.

For part two, click here.

A condensed column can’t possibly do Griffith’s interview justice. Plus, tune in for part three on Friday with Roneel’s ex-fiance. Trust me it gets even crazier. I cannot make this up.

Okay, next topic.

On Thursday’s show, I answered a couple of questions from the audience. Here’s one that I wanted to share with you:

Hi, Candace. I was wondering about your thoughts on people receiving awards and positions and it being prefixed by “the first”? Reading the news this morning alone, I am told we now have the first black president of Harvard, the first black Filipino actress playing “Beauty and the Beast’s” Bell. Personally, I feel like this nuance undermines the accomplishments of these people. Like as if these people were only elected or chosen because of their race or whatever makes them not a heterosexual white male. Would love your thoughts because you know all! ~Mallory. 

Well, first — I don’t know everything, but I do know a little bit and you are correct. I think it is so undermining to constantly have to announce the way somebody looks. It’s one of the things I also say, especially about black America, is that we should be able to get places based on merit.

I never needed to know whether Denzel Washington was the first person to play this or that to enjoy his movies. He’s an excellent actor. It doesn’t matter to me how many awards he’s won or whether he was “the first” or “the last” person to have won those awards.

The sad part is, because we no longer exist in a meritocracy in America, we do have a bunch of black people being given positions based on the color of their skin — not their own talents.

For example, as you all know I am a great consumer of ballet. I love ballet. So I have to be completely honest, I was so upset to recently come across a ballerina in the San Francisco ballet who was just terrible — on a typically inspiring Instagram page that highlights black people in ballet.

In watching her move, there’s literally no way, based on the merit of her dancing, that she got the position as the lead ballerina of a San Francisco ballet.

So, then I looked at her profile and I saw that she was super, super pro-George Floyd.

And I thought to myself, this is literally the reason the San Francisco Ballet awarded her that opportunity. It has to be. She’s just not the best. She just isn’t. There’s no way. You can’t watch a talented ballerina such as Skylar Brandt — who happens to be white — and then watch this person  — who happens to be black — and think that these two people both deserve the same positions.

Now, that’s speculation, but it does seem to be a trend in society.

And that makes me sad, because black people are beyond capable of earning notable positions based on merit.

You should want to receive awards because you actually have earned them, not because you whined about George Floyd and it could be an opportunity for an organization to say “He or she was the first [insert race/gender] to do this.”