Source: AFP
The Justice Department late Friday filed its response to TikTok’s civil lawsuit aimed at derailing a law that would have forced the app to be sold or face a US ban.
TikTok’s lawsuit in federal court in Washington argues that the law violates First Amendment free speech rights.
The U.S. response counters that the law addresses issues of national security, not speech, and that TikTok’s Chinese parent company ByteDance is unable to assert First Amendment rights here.
The filing details that ByteDance could and would comply with Chinese government demands for data about US users or bow to pressure to censor or promote content on the platform, senior Justice Department officials said in a briefing.
“The goal of this law is to ensure that the young, the elderly and everyone in between can use the platform in a safe manner,” said a senior justice department official.
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“And to use it in a way that makes sure that their data doesn’t end up going back to the Chinese government and that what they’re watching isn’t being directed or censored by the Chinese government.”
The response argues that the law’s focus on foreign ownership of TikTok takes it out of the First Amendment’s purview.
US intelligence agencies are concerned that China may be “weaponizing” mobile apps, Justice Department officials said.
“It is clear that the Chinese government has for years been pursuing large, structured data sets of Americans through all manner of means, including malicious online activity, including efforts to purchase this data from data brokers and others, and including efforts to create sophisticated artificial intelligence models. intelligence that can use that data,” a senior Justice Department official said.
TikTok said the required assignment is “simply not possible” — and not on the timeline required.
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The bill signed by President Joe Biden earlier this year gave TikTok until mid-January 2025 to find a non-Chinese buyer or face a US ban.
The White House can extend the deadline by 90 days.
“For the first time in history, Congress has enacted a law that subjects a single, named speech platform to a permanent, nationwide ban and prohibits every American from participating in a unique online community of more than a billion people worldwide,” TikTok’s suit said. and ByteDance.
Shutting down TikTok?
ByteDance has said it has no plans to sell TikTok, leaving the lawsuit, which will likely go to the US Supreme Court, as its only option to avoid the ban.
“There is no question: the law will force the shutdown of TikTok by January 19, 2025,” the lawsuit said, “silencing (those) who use the platform to communicate in ways that cannot be replicated elsewhere.”
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TikTok was first targeted by former President Donald Trump’s administration, which tried unsuccessfully to ban it.
That effort bogged down in the courts when a federal judge temporarily blocked Trump’s effort, saying his reasons for banning the app were likely overstated and that free speech rights were at risk.
The new effort signed by Biden is designed to overcome the same legal headaches, and some experts believe the US Supreme Court could be open to allowing national security concerns to trump free speech protections.
“We see the statute as a game changer from the arguments that were going on in 2020,” said a senior Justice Department official.
There are serious doubts that any buyer could emerge to buy TikTok even if ByteDance agreed to the request.
The usual suspects of big tech, like Facebook parent Meta or YouTube’s Google, would likely be blocked from acquiring TikTok due to antitrust concerns, and others could not afford one of the world’s most successful apps used by approx. 170 million people in the United States alone.
Source: AFP
