The platform reiterates that the opposition of the Department of Justice represents an attack on the Constitution
The United States Department of Justice has informed a court that it considers the data collection protocol used by the audiovisual content platform TikTok represents a national security problem, in its first response to a legal maneuver by the company to prevent its disassociation from its Chinese parent company, ByteDance.
Justice perceives TikTok’s measures as insufficient to address the concerns of the US Government. Although TikTok has committed to protecting the data of its users in the US, Justice understands that China can still collect information about them or manipulate the content of what they publish.
“Given TikTok’s broad reach within the United States, China’s ability to use its functions to achieve its general objective of undermining American interests creates a national security threat of immense depth and scale,” according to the US Government’s filing with the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, reported by the ‘New York Times’.
TikTok’s fate rests in part with the US courts after it filed a lawsuit to overturn President Joe Biden’s law requiring Beijing-based ByteDance to sell the app by January 19 or be banned from operating in the US.
However, in a subsequent statement, TikTok said it remains confident in its chances. “Nothing in the (government’s) brief changes the fact that the Constitution is on our side,” the company said in a statement posted on social media.
“Banning TikTok would silence the voices of 170 million Americans, violating the First Amendment. As we have said before, the government has never provided evidence for its claims, even when Congress passed this unconstitutional law,” it added.
