I have never used TikTok but Facebook thinks I have.

January 11, 2021 6:39 AM

Starting yesterday, Facebook has been giving me periodic timestamped notifications that I have logged in to TikTok (← screenshot of one). I have never used TikTok. What's going on? How do I stop it?

I have changed my facebook password since this started and logged out all devices that say they were logged in to my facebook account. I recognized all devices that it said were logged in recently. New notifications continue to appear periodically.

When I remove the app from facebook, it gives me a user ID, and I've contacted TikTok with that user ID, but have not received a response yet.

I have never used TikTok nor signed up for an account there nor tried to link TikTok to my facebook account. I do not have TikTok on any of my devices.

Has an account been hacked? On the facebook side, I use facebook, instagram (connected to facebook, 2FA enabled), and whatsapp (haven't logged in in a while and don't think it's connected to either facebook or instagram accounts).

What should I do?

posted by msbrauer to Computers & Internet (4 answers total)

Someone may have signed up with your email address, possibly inadvertently. This happens to me a few times a year with various services. Go to the sign up, see if your email address is in use. If it is, reset the pssword, which will presumably come to your email, set a new password, and ignore the rest.
posted by theora55 at 6:59 AM on January 11, 2021 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Someone may have signed up with your email address

Tried my email addresses in the forgot password dialog, and none have been used with a TikTok account.
posted by msbrauer at 7:02 AM on January 11, 2021 [1 favorite]

I haven't really actively used facebook in a couple years, but I can't imagine they've improved. They were doing this shady thing at least for a while where it was DEAD EASY to create, like, ghost instances of yourself? Or something maybe? On the facebook-side of apps. I can't remember the exact first instance where I noticed this, but I was reviewing the "other apps" section in my facebook account security, and it had created a (again I don't remember, but it was something like Pinterest) profile using my facebook account on some other app, but for use within facebook.

I have also heard of similar things happening when you comment on a post out in what you think is the wild internet, where some non-facebook site uses facebook credentialing to let you comment on a post. Like you're not actually commenting on Local Newspaper Website with an account at localpaper.com, you're commenting on the facebook comment board attached at the bottom of the Local Newspaper Website article with your facebook account.

If someone posted a tiktok link here on metafilter, and you as a non tiktok user clicked it, it would open that tiktok video with comments and such below it in browser. Your browser ALWAYS KNOWS if you're logged into facebook. Is there a chance you could have gone to look at a single in-browser tiktok video and then interacted with it or a comment on it (even by accident or muscle memory)? Facebook could have created a ghost tiktok profile for you under your facebook credentials.

Have you checked in your facebook security settings to see what third parties it has you permissioned for?
posted by phunniemee at 7:52 AM on January 11, 2021 [1 favorite]

You can use Facebook Container - a browser add-on- to make it much harder for FB and IG to track what you do on other sites. Don't know if it would solve or prevent this but couldn't hurt.
posted by leslies at 10:58 AM on January 11, 2021