The U.S. Justice Department on Friday charged TikTok with illegally collecting information about its users’ views on sensitive topics and censoring content at the direction of its China-based parent company. TikTok had previously filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District of Columbia Court of Appeals seeking to stop enforcement of a law that allows the social media platform to be blocked unless it is sold.
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The law, signed by US President Joe Biden on April 24, requires Beijing-based parent company ByteDance to sell TikTok by January 19 or face blocking in the US if it fails to comply.
The information TikTok collects includes data on users based on their views on controversial social issues such as gun control, abortion and religion, the US Justice Department said, adding that it believes the short-form video-sharing app poses a threat to US national security.
“Collecting Americans’ data is not a protective activity,” a senior Justice Department official said in explaining the contents of the department’s filing with a federal appeals court, many of which are classified.
In particular, they report that TikTok and ByteDance used an internal web package system called Lark, which allowed the video service’s employees to communicate directly with ByteDance engineers in China. With its help, TikTok employees sent sensitive data about US users to China, which was ultimately stored on Chinese servers and accessible to ByteDance employees, the US Justice Department claims. Therefore, TikTok’s proposal to store US user data on US servers owned by Oracle will not ensure its protection, the Justice Department believes.
More than half of U.S. residents aged 18 to 29 use TikTok, according to the Pew Research Center. Several billionaires have expressed interest in acquiring TikTok, but ByteDance has said it has no plans to sell its U.S. business. Oral arguments in the case will be held in September.
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