Justice Department says TikTok collected opinions from US users on issues including abortion and gun control

WASHINGTON (AP) — In another rebuke of one of the world’s most popular technology companies, the Justice Department on Friday night accused TikTok of exploiting its ability to gather mass information about its users based on their views on divisive social issues such as gun control, abortion and religion.

Government lawyers wrote in a letter filed with a federal appeals court in Washington that TikTok and its Beijing-based parent company, ByteDance, used an internal online system called Lark that allowed TikTok employees to communicate directly with ByteDance engineers in China.

TikTok employees used Lark to transmit sensitive user data from the U.S. That information was stored on Chinese servers and was accessible to ByteDance employees in China, federal officials said.

One of Lark’s internal search tools, the filing said, allows ByteDance and TikTok employees in the U.S. and China to collect information about users’ content or statements, including views on sensitive topics like abortion or religion. Last year, the Wall Street Journal reported that TikTok tracked users who viewed LGBTQ content through a dashboard that the company said it has since removed.

The new court filings represent the government’s first major defense in a major legal battle over the future of the popular social media platform used by more than 170 million Americans. Under a law signed by President Joe Biden in April, the company could be banned within months if it doesn’t cut ties with ByteDance.

The bill passed with bipartisan support after lawmakers and administration officials raised concerns that Chinese authorities could force ByteDance to hand over U.S. user data or sway public opinion to Beijing’s interests by manipulating the algorithm that populates users’ news feeds.

The Justice Department issued a stark warning about the potential threat of what it called “hidden content manipulation” by the Chinese government, saying the algorithm could be designed to shape the content users receive.

“By instructing ByteDance or TikTok to covertly manipulate this algorithm, China could, for example, deepen its existing malign influence activities and escalate its efforts to undermine trust in our democracy and deepen social divisions,” the brief reads.

The concerns, they say, are more than just theory, with TikTok and ByteDance employees known to practice “heating,” where certain videos are promoted in order to gain a certain number of views. While this capability allows TikTok to curate popular content and distribute it more widely, U.S. officials assume it could also be used for nefarious purposes.

Justice Department officials have asked the court to release a secret version of its reasoning, to which none of the companies will have access.

TikTok spokesman Alex Haurek said in a statement that nothing in the censored passage “changes the fact that the Constitution is on our side.”

“A TikTok ban would silence the voices of 170 million Americans, violating the First Amendment,” Haurek said. “As we’ve said, the government has never provided evidence to support its claims, including when Congress passed this unconstitutional law. Today, the government is once again taking this unprecedented step, hiding behind classified information. We remain confident that we will prevail in court.”

In a redacted version of court documents, the Justice Department said another tool triggered suppression based on the use of certain words. Some of the tool’s policies affected ByteDance users in China, where the company operates a similar app called Douyin that adheres to Beijing’s strict censorship rules.

But Justice Department officials said different policies may have been applied to TikTok users outside of China. TikTok was investigating the existence of those policies and whether they were ever applied in the U.S. in or around 2022, the officials said.

The government is citing the Lark data transfers to explain why federal officials do not believe Project Texas, TikTok’s $1.5 billion plan to protect American users’ data on servers owned and maintained by tech giant Oracle, is sufficient to protect against national security threats.

In its legal challenge to the law, TikTok has leaned heavily on arguments that the potential ban violates the First Amendment because it prohibits the app from continuing to provide speech unless it attracts a new owner through a complex divestiture process. It has also argued that divesting would change speech on the platform because the new social platform would lack the algorithm that fueled its success.

In its response, the Justice Department argued that TikTok had not raised any valid free speech claims, stating that the act addresses national security concerns without infringing on free speech, and that China and ByteDance, as foreign entities, are not protected by the First Amendment.

TikTok also argues that the U.S. law discriminates based on viewpoints, citing statements by some lawmakers criticizing what they saw as the platform’s anti-Israel stance during the Gaza war.

Justice Department officials dispute that argument, saying the challenged law reflects their ongoing concerns that China could weaponize technology against U.S. national security, concerns they say are exacerbated by demands that Beijing-controlled companies hand over sensitive data to the government. They argue that TikTok, under its current operating structure, must respond to those demands.

An oral hearing in the case is scheduled for September.