TikTok has raised concerns about the US government’s failure to consider viable alternative options before moving forward with legislation that could ban the platform in the country. The company, whose owner is China-based ByteDance, says it has submitted a detailed plan to mitigate national security risks, a plan that was largely ignored when Congress passed a law with a significant impact on freedom of expression. Both TikTok and a group of creators on the platform filed a motion, and argued why they believe the new law violates the First Amendment. The court will hear arguments on September 16, just months before the January 19, 2025 deadline by which TikTok must separate from ByteDance or face a ban from operating in the United States.
The “Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act” would effectively ban TikTok from operating in the United States unless it splits from ByteDance by the deadline. The president has the option to extend that deadline slightly if he sees progress toward an agreement. However, separating TikTok is not easy, given the limited supply of potential buyers and the fact that China’s export law would likely prevent the sale of its valuable algorithm. Lawmakers who supported the veto believe the sale is necessary to protect national security, fearing that the Chinese government could access U.S. users’ information and that ByteDance could be forced by the Chinese government to manipulate the algorithm to spread propaganda in the United States United. TikTok denies this is happening or could happen in the future, saying its operations are separate from ByteDance’s.
The main points of TikTok’s arguments have already been outlined in the complaints. However, the new documents offer deeper insight into how TikTok has interacted with the US government over the years, laying out detailed plans for how it thought it could mitigate national security concerns while continuing its operations. In an appendix, TikTok submitted hundreds of pages of communications with the US government, including presentations made to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) as it assessed national security risks related to its ownership structure. A document explains the fundamentals of how its algorithm determines what to recommend to users and a detailed plan to mitigate the risk of US users’ data being accessed improperly. It also includes a floor plan for a “dedicated transparency center,” built in collaboration with Oracle and not accessible to ByteDance.