Two Memos on the Chief Security Officer Stepping Down (Insider Comms From TikTok)

Insider Comms for internal communications

Last week TikTok announced to its employees that its Chief Security Officer (CSO) Roland Cloutier is stepping down. The move, which apparently had been planned for months, follows a BuzzFeed News report in June that TikTok employees in China repeatedly accessed American users’ data at least from September 2021-January 2022. In June TikTok also announced they are moving data storage to Oracle (i.e., U.S.-based) servers and that the outgoing CSO was not in charge of that effort.

TikTok shared the main news with employees by sending:

1. A memo from the outgoing CSO

2. A memo co-signed by the TikTok CEO and ByteDance VP of Technology (ByteDance owns TikTok)

I’m sharing these two memos (below) as a way to show you how a major multibillion-dollar firm with outsized global influence and ties to mainland China reports to employees a major move in the C-Suite.

Here’s what sticks out: