US defends law forcing sale of TikTok app

The Justice Department on Friday evening filed a response to TikTok’s civil lawsuit, which seeks to thwart a law that would force the app to sell or risk being banned in the US.

TikTok’s lawsuit, filed in federal court in Washington, argues that the law violates the First Amendment right to free speech.

The U.S. responds that the law deals with national security issues, not free speech, and that TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, cannot invoke First Amendment rights.

The filing raised concerns that ByteDance could and would comply with Chinese government requests for U.S. user data or succumb to pressure to censor or promote content on the platform, senior Justice Department officials said.

“The purpose of this law is to make sure that young, old and everyone in between can use the platform in a safe way,” a senior Justice Department official said.

“And use them in a way that makes sure their data doesn’t end up back at the Chinese government, and what they’re viewing isn’t being directed or censored by the Chinese government.”

The authors of the response argue that the fact that the bill focuses on TikTok’s foreign owners makes it ineligible for the First Amendment.

US intelligence agencies fear China could ‘weaponize mobile apps’, Justice Department officials say

“It is clear that the Chinese government has been pursuing large, structured data sets of Americans for years in every possible way, including through malicious cyber activity; including efforts to buy that data from data brokers and others; and efforts to build advanced artificial intelligence models that can leverage that data,” a senior Justice Department official said.

TikTok said the requested sale “is simply not possible” and does not fit within the required timeframe.

A law signed by President Joe Biden earlier this year set a mid-January 2025 deadline for TikTok to find a buyer outside of China or face a U.S. ban.

The White House may extend the deadline by 90 days.

“For the first time in history, Congress has enacted a law that mandates a permanent, nationwide ban on a single, named messaging platform and prevents every American from participating in a unique online community of more than one billion people worldwide,” TikTok and ByteDance said in the lawsuit.

– TikTok shutdown? –

ByteDance has said it has no plans to sell TikTok, making the lawsuit, which is likely to go to the U.S. Supreme Court, the only option to avoid a ban.

“There is no doubt about it: the bill will force TikTok to shut down by January 19, 2025,” the lawsuit said, “silencing (those) who use the platform to communicate in ways that cannot be replicated elsewhere.”

TikTok first found itself in the crosshairs of former President Donald Trump’s administration, which tried unsuccessfully to ban it.

That attempt stalled in court when a federal judge temporarily blocked Trump’s request, saying the reasons for blocking the app were likely exaggerated and free speech was at risk.

The new measures signed by Biden aim to overcome the same legal challenges, and some experts say the U.S. Supreme Court may be open to allowing national security considerations to trump free speech protections.

“We believe this bill is a game-changer compared to the arguments that were made in 2020,” said a senior Justice Department official.

There are serious doubts that there will be anyone willing to buy TikTok, even if ByteDance agrees.

The usual suspects of big tech companies like Meta, Facebook’s parent company, and Google, which owns YouTube, likely won’t be able to acquire TikTok because of antitrust concerns. Others wouldn’t be able to afford one of the world’s most popular apps, used by an estimated 170 million people in the U.S. alone.

gc/jgc/sco