Sources: ByteDance launched audits into TikTok’s global CSO Roland Cloutier before he quit, hamstringing his efforts to build a robust security team (Emily Baker-White/Forbes)

Emily Baker-White / Forbes:
Web novel apps backed by ByteDance and Tencent are running hundreds of Facebook and Instagram ads showing sexual assault, violent erotica, and acts of self-harm  —  Some of the ads include descriptions of sexual violence, paired with images of battered women and photos of male fitness influencers, which were used without permission.

Emily Baker-White / Forbes:
Docs: a China-based ByteDance audit team planned to collect TikTok location data of US citizens who had never had an employment relationship with the company  —  The project, assigned to a Beijing-led team, would have involved accessing location data from some U.S. users’ devices without their knowledge or consent.

Emily Baker-White / Forbes:
Internal meetings: TikTok employed a two-tiered moderation system with “more lenient” treatment for influencers, celebrities, and other VIPs with 5M+ followers  —  Content from accounts with more than 5 million followers has been routed through a designated, “more lenient” …

Steven Bertoni / Forbes:
Ryan Breslow, who stepped down as Bolt Financial CEO in January, launches Love, a DAO to fund clinical trials in alternate medicine, with $7.5M in funding  —  The controversial founder and executive chairman of payment company Bolt slides into the CEO seat of an early-stage wellness startup.

Coco Feng / South China Morning Post:
Sources: ByteDance CFO told staff that it has no plans to go public; report: CEO Liang said the company plans to reduce input into noncore businesses  —  TikTok ‘s parent company ByteDance , the world’s most valuable unicorn, has no plans to go public, its chief financial officer told employees …

New York Times:
Former TikTok and ByteDance staff say TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew’s power is limited, with ByteDance’s founder and other executives making most decisions  —  Shou Zi Chew, TikTok’s chief executive, is balancing how to be an autonomous leader while juggling the demands of the app’s Chinese parent company.