TikTok is going to get its day in court

Next week, the court will discuss whether the US government can prohibit Titoku, based on evidence that no one wants a company on social networks. On September 16, Colombia County Court hears the oral discussion of Tiktok V. Garland, TikTok is challenging the First Amendment in a law that she says amounts to a ban. It’s not just a fight over free speech, but also over whether the Justice Department can make a case using classified documents that its opponent can’t review or argue against. The government claims to be a clear threat to national security, but will clarify why it will be a threat.

"I think the court will walk very carefully here," said Verge Matt Schettenhelm that Verge Matt Schettenhelm, the main dispute of Bloomberg Intelligence, is the main dispute between TECH and TELECOM. "The idea of ​​doing this for secret reasons that the company hasn't even told itself, especially in the case of a First Amendment that effectively bans one of the leading free speech platforms in the country, is self-inflicted. It's clearly a concern for the judge.

The Justice Department's Lawsuit Against TikTok

The lawsuit from TikTok comes from a law signed in April by President Joe Biden. It requires ByteDance to sell the app within nine months to a non-Chinese company. If that fails, the app will be effectively banned in the U.S. unless the president gives them several months to reach an agreement. TikTok argues that the law would unconstitutionally “lead to closure,” accusing the government of taking the “unprecedented step of directly singling out and banning TikTok.”

In documents first filed on July 28, the government laid out its defense, making a series of claims about TikTok’s risks. The claims were based on dozens of pages of redacted classified material. The Ministry of Justice insisted that it was not “to try secretly”, but with reference to the problems of national security, he asked to submit the classified EX Parte material, which means that only one side (and a group of judges) could see it. We obviously do not know exactly that in these documents, but partially edited applications give us some tips. They are primarily focused on whether the Chinese government could force ByteDance to hand over U.S. user data or force the company to use TikTok's algorithms to serve certain content to U.S. users.

The government argues that the national security risks posed by TikTok are so great that they outweigh First Amendment claims. The Justice Department said Congress had decided to ban TikTok if it continued to operate in the U.S. based on "detailed information, including significant classified information, about risks to national security." One of the documents was a statement from Deputy Director of National Intelligence Casey Blackburn. Blackburn wrote that there is “no information” that the Chinese government has used TikTok for “malign foreign influence targeting U.S. citizens” or to “collect sensitive data on U.S. citizens.” But he said there is a “risk” that this could happen in the future.

Another statement came from Kevin Vondran, assistant director of the FBI’s counterintelligence division. Vorndoran detailed how TikTok may be a "hybrid commercial threat," a business whose legitimate activities serve as a backdoor to allow foreign governments access to U.S. data, infrastructure, and technology. He argued that the Chinese government is using "pre-positioning tactics" as part of a "broader geopolitical and long-term strategy to undermine U.S. national security." The effort, according to the government, is "years in the planning and execution." In other words, the government argues that China could spy on TikTok users in the U.S., even if it hasn't done so yet. The Justice Department is particularly critical of TikTok’s ability to access users’ contacts, locations, and other data, which could allow the Chinese government to track Americans. The department notes that researchers can easily identify individuals using anonymized datasets, making “anonymized” data not anonymized at all. The documents claim that TikTok’s recommendation algorithm could also be used to influence American users. TikTok’s “stay warm” feature allows employees to “manually promote certain content,” possibly at the direction of the Chinese government.

Lawmakers from both parties have accused TikTok of promoting content critical of Israel. In a closed-door meeting with the Unlabeled group, lawmakers Mike Lawler (R-NY) suggested that protests on college campuses against the war between Israel and Hamas were evidence that students were being “manipulated by certain groups, entities or countries.” And Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL), a ranking member of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, told The New York Times in April that the war between Israel and Hamas was a factor in lawmakers’ rush to regulate TikTok. However, the most compelling evidence of all this has not been made public. For example, Blackburn's statement includes an eight-page section titled "ByteDance and TikTok's History of Content Censorship and Manipulation under the Leadership of the People's Republic of China," but it is almost entirely redacted.