By David Shepardson
(Reuters) – The U.S. Justice Department asked a federal appeals court late on Friday to uphold an April law requiring China-based ByteDance to sell TikTok's U.S. assets by Jan. 19 or face a ban.
The Justice Department argued in its filing that Chinese-owned TikTok poses a serious national security threat due to its access to vast amounts of Americans' personal data, claiming that China can covertly manipulate the information Americans consume through TikTok.
“The serious national security threat posed by TikTok is real,” the department said. “TikTok provides the Chinese government with the means to undermine U.S. national security in two primary ways: data collection and covert content manipulation.”
The Biden administration has asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to reject lawsuits by TikTok, parent company ByteDance and a group of TikTok creators seeking to block the law that could ban the app used by 170 million Americans.
TikTok has repeatedly denied that it ever shares U.S. user data with China or manipulates video results.
“The government has never provided evidence for its claims, even when Congress passed this unconstitutional law. Today, once again, the government is taking this unprecedented step while hiding behind classified information,” TikTok posted on social media platform x in response to the Justice Department's report.
The Justice Department filing details broad national security concerns about ByteDance's ownership of TikTok.
“China's long-term geopolitical strategy involves developing and prepositioning assets that it can deploy at opportune moments,” the department said.
The government acknowledged in a separate statement that it had no information that the Chinese government had gained access to the data of American TikTok users, but said the risk of that possibility was too great.
“The United States is not required to wait until its foreign adversary takes specific disruptive actions before responding to such a threat,” the document said.
QUESTION OF THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS
The government also filed a classified document with the court detailing additional security concerns about ByteDance’s ownership of TikTok, as well as broader statements from the FBI, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Justice Department’s National Security Division.
ByteDance told the US government that TikTok's source code contained 2 billion lines of code, making a full review impossible. “Oracle (NYSE:) estimated that it would take three years to review this set of code,” not including additional changes, the Justice Department added.
The law, signed by President Joe Biden on April 24, gives ByteDance until Jan. 19 to sell TikTok or face a ban. The White House says it wants an end to Chinese ownership on national security grounds, but not a ban on TikTok.
The department rejected all arguments raised by TikTok, including that the law violates the First Amendment free speech rights of Americans who use the short-video app, and said the law addresses national security concerns, not speech concerns, and targets China’s ability to exploit TikTok to access Americans’ sensitive personal information.
TikTok users have “numerous other well-known platforms,” including YouTube, facebook (NASDAQ:), instagram, Snapchat and x, that they could use instead, the Justice Department said.
The Justice Department added that TikTok's $2 billion plan to protect U.S. user data was insufficient, saying the company's proposed settlement fell short in part because U.S. officials do not trust ByteDance and the government's “lack of confidence that it had the resources or ability to detect breaches.”
The appeals court is set to hold oral arguments on the legal challenge on Sept. 16, putting the question of TikTok's fate in the final weeks of the Nov. 5 presidential election.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump joined TikTok and said in June that he would never support a TikTok ban. Vice President Kamala Harris, who is set to become the Democratic nominee, joined TikTok this week.
The law bars app stores like Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:) and Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:)'s Google from offering TikTok and prohibits internet hosting services from supporting TikTok unless ByteDance divests from it.
Fueled by concerns among U.S. lawmakers that China could access or spy on Americans' data using the app, Congress overwhelmingly approved the measure just weeks after it was introduced.
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