By David Shepardson
(Reuters) – The Justice Department late on Friday asked a U.S. appeals court to reject legal challenges to a law requiring China-based ByteDance to divest TikTok’s U.S. assets by Jan. 19 or face a ban.
TikTok and parent company ByteDance and a group of TikTok creators have filed suits to block the law that could ban the app used by 170 million Americans.
The Justice Department will detail wide-ranging national security concerns about ByteDance’s ownership of TikTok.
The government is also filing a classified document with the court that will detail additional security concerns about ByteDance’s ownership of TikTok as well as declarations from the FBI, Office of the Director of National Intelligence and Justice Department’s National Security Division, a senior official said.
The Justice Department will argue TikTok under Chinese ownership poses a serious national security threat to Americans because of its access to vast personal data of Americans and will argue China can covertly manipulate information that Americans consume via TikTok, a Justice Department official said.
Signed by President Joe Biden on April 24, the law gives ByteDance until Jan. 19 to sell TikTok or face a ban. The White House says it wants to see Chinese-based ownership ended on national security grounds, but not a ban on TikTok.
The department is rejecting all of the arguments raised by TikTok, including that the law violates the First Amendment free speech rights of Americans that use the short video app, saying the law is aimed at addressing national security concerns, not speech and is aimed at China’s ability to exploit Tiktok to access Americans sensitive personal information, a senior Justice Department official said.
The government will tell the court that TikTok’s efforts to protect U.S. user data are insufficient.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia will hold oral arguments on the legal challenge on Sept. 16, putting the fate of TikTok in the middle of the final weeks of the 2024 presidential election.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has joined TikTok and told an interviewer in June he would never support a TikTok ban. Vice President Kamala Harris, who is running for president, joined TikTok this week.
The law prohibits app stores like Apple (NASDAQ:) and Alphabet (NASDAQ:)’s Google from offering TikTok and bars internet hosting services from supporting TikTok unless it is divested by ByteDance.
Driven by worries among U.S. lawmakers that China could access data on Americans or spy on them with the app, the measure was passed overwhelmingly in the U.S. Congress just weeks after being introduced.
