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The Justice Department alleges that TikTok collects information about its U.S. users and their opinions on social issues like gun control, abortion and religion, and transmits it to engineers in China.
According to documents filed with the federal appeals court in Washington, the Justice Department alleges that TikTok and its China-based parent company, ByteDance, used an internal Web Suite system, Lark, to allow TikTok employees to speak directly with ByteDance engineers in China. Associated Press report.
According to the U.S. government, TikTok employees used Lark to transmit sensitive data about U.S. users that was stored on servers in China and accessible to ByteDance employees in China.
One of Lark’s internal search tools allows ByteDance and TikTok employees in the U.S. and China to collect data about users’ content and their positions on certain social issues. The Wall Street Journal reported last year that TikTok had previously tracked users who viewed LGBTQ+ content through a dashboard the company said it had removed.
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The Justice Department alleges that TikTok collects information about its U.S. users and their views on social issues like gun control, abortion and religion, and transmits it to engineers in China. (Photo Illustration: Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
The latest court documents come ahead of a legal battle in which the government is trying to defend a possible ban of the video-sharing social media platform in the U.S. President Biden signed a bipartisan bill in April that would force ByteDance to sell TikTok or face a ban on the platform in the U.S. starting in January.
Members of Congress and administration officials have expressed concerns about national security threats and allegations that the platform’s algorithms are feeding Chinese propaganda to U.S. users.
“Intelligence reports further demonstrate that ByteDance and TikTok Global took action in response to (the Chinese government’s) demands to censor content outside of China,” senior U.S. intelligence official Casey Blackburn said in a document supporting the government’s allegations.
The Justice Department alleged possible “covert content manipulation” by the Chinese government and argued that the platform’s algorithms may be designed to dictate the content that users see.
“By directing ByteDance and TikTok to covertly manipulate our algorithms, for example, China could further its existing malign influence operations and strengthen its efforts to undermine faith in our democracy and exacerbate social divisions,” the filing said.
The department said its concerns were not theoretical, and that TikTok and ByteDance employees have a history of engaging in “hyping” practices, which are the practice of promoting certain videos to reach a wider audience. The feature allows TikTok to curate popular content and distribute it to a wider audience, but the government has said it could also be used for malicious purposes.
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The Justice Department alleges that TikTok and its China-based parent company, ByteDance, used Lark, an internal web suite system, to allow TikTok employees to communicate directly with ByteDance engineers in China. (Photo by AaronP/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images)
Federal officials are asking the court to allow a confidential version of the legal summary that will not be provided to ByteDance or TikTok, according to the Associated Press.
TikTok spokesman Alex Haurek said the edited version of the op-ed “does not change the fact that the Constitution is on our side.”
“Banning TikTok silences the voices of 170 million Americans and violates the First Amendment,” Haurek said. “As we have said before, the administration has never provided any evidence for its claims, not even when Congress passed this unconstitutional bill. Today, the administration is once again taking this unprecedented step while hiding behind secret information. We are confident we will prevail in court.”
In its legal challenge to the potential ban, TikTok argues that the law, which would prohibit speech on the platform unless ByteDance sells its shares, violates its First Amendment right to free speech. TikTok also argues that the law discriminates against views, citing recent comments by some lawmakers who criticized the platform for promoting anti-Israel content at a time when Israel and Hamas are at war in Gaza.
ByteDance and TikTok filed suit against the law in May, arguing that “a divestment is simply not possible — commercially, technically and legally. … This legislation would force TikTok to shut down by January 19, 2025, and would certainly silence the 170 million Americans who use the platform to communicate in ways they can’t find anywhere else.”
The Justice Department said in redacted court documents that another tool led to content moderation based on the use of certain words, and some policies around that tool affected ByteDance users in China.
TikTok said the edited version of the brief “does not change the fact that the Constitution is on our side.” (Photo illustration by Drew Ungerer/Getty Images)
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ByteDance runs a similar platform in China called Douyin, which adheres to Chinese government censorship rules.
But Justice Department officials said other policies may apply to TikTok users outside of China, and that TikTok was investigating whether those policies existed and were ever used in the U.S. around 2022.
Citing Lark data being sent to China, the government argues that TikTok’s $1.5 billion mitigation plan, “Project Texas,” which would store U.S. user data on servers owned and controlled by U.S. tech giant Oracle, is not enough protection against national security concerns.
Oral arguments in the challenge to the U.S. law are scheduled for September.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
