Consumer Alert: Federal panel of judges to decide whether TikTok can be banned in the US

ROCHESTER, N.Y. — TikTok is on trial. Its lawyers were in federal court Monday, fighting to keep the app alive. The decision, issued by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, could lead to TikTok being shut down in the U.S. That could have a huge impact on consumers.

TikTok is more than just entertainment for teenagers. It’s a social media giant. According to the company, 7 million small businesses in America use TikTok, generating $15 billion in revenue. And the magic of TikTok is its algorithm. This algorithm creates recommendations for users, effectively analyzing your interests to keep you hooked on the app.

The company that invented the algorithm is TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance. ByteDance is based in China. Here’s the problem. Chinese law requires any company based in China to assist the government in any intelligence operation. A Chinese government official even sits on ByteDance’s board.

In court on Monday, lawyers representing the U.S. government argued that Chinese ownership of TikTok could give the Chinese government, a U.S. adversary, access to a trove of confidential information about millions of American users, enable it to identify Americans in order to spy on them, and even weaponize disinformation to destabilize American democracy.

News10NBC interviewed Suzy Loftus, TikTok’s Chief Trust and Safety Officer, who said the company has already taken steps to protect user data.

“One of the key things we’ve done voluntarily and unprecedentedly is partner with Oracle, a U.S. company, to store all of our U.S. user data for the past year and into the future,” Loftus said. “So we’re very proud of the investment we’re making in a thriving community in the U.S.”

But Congress says that’s not enough, voting overwhelmingly to ban TikTok in the U.S. if it doesn’t sell the company by January. In court on Monday, TikTok’s lawyers argued that banning the app would affect the First Amendment rights of 170 million American consumers.

“We are fighting the ban in the courts,” Loftus said. “We believe it is unconstitutional and, quite frankly, half of Americans find community and magic on TikTok — 7 million businesses. So this would have a devastating impact on those Americans and we are fighting the ban in the courts.”

A federal appeals court in Washington heard arguments from lawyers for TikTok and the U.S. government for two hours Monday. Sometimes you can tell which way the justices are leaning by the questions they ask. I can’t predict that.

There’s no word on when the court will issue a verdict, but a recently passed law in the US states that TikTok must be sold to new owners by January 19 or it will be banned in the US. So we expect the court to issue a ruling before that deadline.