Trump even announced that if he wins a four-year presidential term in the election three months later, he will “never shut down TikTok,” but this does not affect the current US government’s vision for this popular short-video social platform. . Severe judicial measures.
On Friday, the US Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission filed a lawsuit against TikTok, its parent company ByteDance and their affiliated companies, accusing them of “broad violations” of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act. to collect, use or disclose personal information. For children under 13 years of age with parental permission.
Since the beginning of this year, TikTok has encountered a new round of restrictions and pressures in the United States.
US President Biden signed an executive order on April 24 requiring ByteDance to sell TikTok by January 19, 2025; Otherwise, TikTok will be prohibited from continuing to operate in the US market.
TikTok has always insisted that it is technically, commercially and legally impossible for this platform to separate from ByteDance. The separation will turn TikTok into an empty shell and it will lose the technology to adapt innovative and expressive content to each user.
In response to the ban, TikTok and ByteDance filed a lawsuit with the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on May 7, charging that the ban signed by Biden violated the United States Constitution, especially the protection of free speech under the First Amendment. Of the Constitution.
On June 20, TikTok stated in a court filing that it had spent more than a year negotiating with the US government in hopes of reaching a national security agreement (the agreement was 90 pages) to provide a mechanism for multiple safeguard that complies with government regulations. Requirements, but when the US Congress enacted the TikTok download ban earlier this year, it ignored the foundation previously laid by both parties.
The US Department of Justice issued a statement the same day saying the bill “addresses critical national security issues in a manner consistent with the First Amendment and other provisions of the Constitution.”
The Ministry of Justice announced that it would defend the legislation in court. In addition to actively using lobbyists and expensive lawyers with close ties to the US government to carry out offensive and defensive attacks at the legislative, executive and judicial levels, TikTok also pressured the US Congress by organizing ads that cost millions of dollars in total. For example, eight TikTok content creators appeared in court as plaintiffs, accusing the United States of banning TikTok and trampling on their right to free speech protected by the First Amendment to the US Constitution.
The offense and defense between TikTok and the US government continues to unfold. This lawsuit brought by the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission is the most recent and will continue to further strain the relationship between the two parties.
In June of this year, the US Federal Trade Commission filed a complaint with the Department of Justice containing two illegal content from TikTok. At the time, a source revealed that the Justice Department may no longer continue to address the “issue” of TikTok misleading American consumers in terms of data security, but instead turn to accusations that TikTok and Bytedance may have violated the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act.
The United States has been actively promoting legislation targeting big technology companies to protect the safety and privacy of children. At the end of July, new progress was made. On the 30th, the United States Senate overwhelmingly passed the Children’s Online Safety Act, further strengthening children’s safety and privacy protections.
The US government believes that millions of children under the age of 13 use TikTok, and TikTok has been collecting and retaining the personal information of these child users. FTC Chair Lena Khan said: “TikTok has knowingly and repeatedly violated children’s privacy and threatened the safety of millions of children across the country.” The Justice Department said TikTok knowingly allowed children to create accounts and interact with adults and others who shared clips and messages, contained “a variety” of children’s personal information without their parents’ permission, and failed to delete children’s accounts. children at the request of parents.
A statement released by TikTok said it disagreed with the allegations, noting that “many of these allegations are related to past events or practices, are inconsistent with the facts, or have been resolved. We are proud of our efforts to protect children and We will continue to update and improve our platform.”
In the coming months, the two sides will continue to “fight” on two battlefields, inside and outside the court. When Biden withdrew from the election, the Democratic Party sent Harris to compete with Trump in the presidential election and began to gradually reduce Trump’s lead and may even surpass it in the future. Trump “will never shut down TikTok.” Of course, TikTok may not have originally expected Trump to win the election and then fulfill his promise, because not all of Trump’s promises can be kept. In fact, Trump himself may not even consider this phrase a promise.
