Justice Department Urges Court to Uphold TikTok Divestment, Citing Data Collection Concerns

The U.S. Justice Department has urged a U.K. appeals court to dismiss legal challenges against a law requiring China-based ByteDance to divest TikTok's U.S. assets by January 19th or face a ban. This law, signed by President Biden on April 24, was enacted on national security grounds, asserting that TikTok under Chinese ownership poses a severe risk due to potential access to and manipulation of personal data by the Chinese government. The court will hear oral arguments on the matter on September 16, just weeks before the 2024 presidential election.

The Justice Department has accused TikTok of collecting bulk information on users, focusing on divisive social issues such as gun control, abortion, and religion. The allegations include claims that TikTok and ByteDance used an internal system called Lark to communicate with engineers in China and store sensitive U.S. user data on Chinese servers. The Justice Department has warned of the potential for "covert content manipulation" by the Chinese government through TikTok's algorithm. TikTok has countered by arguing that the potential ban infringes on First Amendment rights and that its $1.5 billion mitigation plan to store U.S. user data on Oracle servers is sufficient to address security concerns.