A bipartisan group of over 50 U.S. lawmakers and more than 20 states have expressed their support for the Justice Department’s efforts to enforce a law that requires China-based company ByteDance to divest its U.S. TikTok assets or face a ban. Currently, the ban is not in effect due to a court challenge by TikTok.
Reps. John Moolenaar (R-Mich.) and Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.), who are the chair and ranking Democrat member of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), respectively, led the filing of an amicus brief against TikTok’s legal challenges.
The lawmakers have raised concerns about ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, being subject to Chinese law, which mandates it to hand over data collected through TikTok for monitoring U.S. users. They argue that allowing TikTok to operate in the United States without severing ties with the Chinese Communist Party poses risks such as corporate espionage and real-time tracking of individuals adverse to CCP interests.
State attorneys general from Montana and Virginia also submitted an amicus brief stating that TikTok poses threats to national security and consumer privacy.
TikTok responded by stating that Congress passed the ban without any supporting evidence from the government. The company claims that banning it would violate First Amendment rights of its 170 million American users.
In April, President Joe Biden signed into law the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act as part of a foreign aid package. This law will prohibit U.S. app stores and web-hosting services from hosting TikTok unless ByteDance divests its U.S. assets.
TikTok filed a lawsuit challenging this law on First Amendment grounds earlier this year, arguing that it violates free speech rights in the United States.
Supporters of this brief include House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.), former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), several members of Congress including Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), as well as some security analysts who believe that allowing a Chinese-owned app like TikTok could lead to invasive surveillance, censorship, and CCP propaganda targeting U.S citizens.
The Department of Justice has asked an appeals court last week to reject Tiktok’s lawsuit citing two-fold threats posed by collecting sensitive data from millions of users while leaving room for covert control by China’s regime over content viewed by American users.
According to an annual threat assessment published by US intelligence community in February found Beijing’s propaganda arm used tiktok accounts during US midterm election cycle in 2022 targeting candidates across political parties
The new law sets January 2025 deadline for tiktok sale but President Biden can extend deadline another three months if needed
Tiktok has claimed they haven’t shared user data with Beijing but according counterespionage laws all companies must handover user data if requested
Congress has banned tiktok on federal government devices due national security concerns similarly nearly forty states have prohibited tik tok on government devices
Montana became first state pass banning tik tok citing national security concerns faced legal challenges granted preliminary injunction
Separately DOJ filed lawsuit against tik tok byte dance violating child privacy laws