TikTok’s appeal should be thrown out, US justice department tells court

The US justice department has asked an appeals court to reject legal challenges to a law requiring China-based ByteDance to divest itself of TikTok’s US assets by 19 January or face a ban.

TikTok, parent company ByteDance and a group of TikTok creators have filed suits seeking to block the law, which could ban the app used by 170 million Americans.

The government is filing a classified document with the court, a senior justice department official said on Friday, that will detail additional security concerns about ByteDance’s ownership of TikTok as well as declarations from the FBI, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the justice department’s national security division.

The department will argue TikTok under Chinese ownership poses a serious national security threat to Americans because of its access to vast personal data of citizens, and will argue China can covertly manipulate information that Americans consume via TikTok.

Signed by the US president, Joe Biden, on 24 April, the law gives TikTok and ByteDance until 19 January to separate or face a ban. The White House says it wants to see Chinese-based ownership ended on national security grounds, but not a ban on TikTok.

The department is rejecting all of the arguments raised by TikTok – including that the law violates the first amendment free speech rights of Americans who use the short video app – saying the law is aimed at addressing national security concerns, not speech, and is aimed at China’s ability to exploit TikTok to access Americans’ sensitive personal information.

The government will tell the court that TikTok’s efforts to protect US user data are insufficient.

The US court of appeals for the District of Columbia will hold oral arguments on the legal challenge on 16 September, putting the fate of TikTok in the middle of the final weeks of the 2024 presidential election.

The Republican presidential candidate, Donald Trump, has joined TikTok and told an interviewer in June he would never support a ban – despite having signed an executive order threatening to ban it in 2020, when he was president. The US vice-president, Kamala Harris, who is running for president, joined TikTok this week.

The law prohibits app stores like Apple and Google from offering TikTok and bars internet hosting services from supporting TikTok unless it is divested by ByteDance.

Driven by worries among US lawmakers that China could access data on Americans or spy on them with the app, the measure was passed overwhelmingly in the US Congress.

With Reuters