In a forceful legal maneuver, the Justice Department has accused TikTok of leveraging its capabilities to gather extensive information on users’ views on sensitive social issues like gun control, abortion, and religion. This accusation, filed late Friday in a federal appeals court, centers on TikTok’s alleged use of an internal web-suite system called Lark, which the government claims enables TikTok employees to directly communicate with ByteDance engineers in China, TikTok’s parent company.
The Justice Department alleges that TikTok employees use Lark to transmit sensitive data about US users, information that ends up being stored on servers in China and potentially accessible to ByteDance employees there. The government’s brief highlights that Lark includes an internal search tool that allows ByteDance and TikTok personnel in both the US and China to gather information on users’ content and expressions, including their opinions on controversial topics like abortion and religion.
These revelations come after the Wall Street Journal reported last year that TikTok had tracked users who viewed LGBTQ content using a dashboard that the company has since claimed to have deleted. The government’s recent court filing represents its first major defense in a pivotal legal battle over the future of TikTok, which boasts over 170 million American users.
The legal battle arises from a law signed by President Biden in April, which could lead to a ban on TikTok within months unless the company severs ties with ByteDance. This bipartisan legislation was passed after lawmakers and administration officials expressed alarm that Chinese authorities could force ByteDance to hand over US user data or influence public opinion in favor of Beijing’s interests by manipulating the algorithm that governs users’ feeds.
The Justice Department warns of the potential for “covert content manipulation” by the Chinese government, suggesting that the algorithm could be intentionally manipulated to shape the content users encounter. The brief states, “By directing ByteDance or TikTok to covertly manipulate that algorithm; China could for example further its existing malign influence operations and amplify its efforts to undermine trust in our democracy and exacerbate social divisions.”
The government asserts that this concern is not merely theoretical, pointing to the practice of “heating” allegedly engaged in by TikTok and ByteDance employees. “Heating” refers to the promotion of specific videos to achieve a target number of views. While this capability allows TikTok to curate popular content and disseminate it more widely, US officials argue that it can also be used for malicious purposes.
The Justice Department has requested that the court allow a classified version of its legal brief, which would be inaccessible to TikTok and ByteDance. TikTok spokesperson Alex Haurek responded in a statement, emphasizing the company’s belief that the Constitution is on their side and that the ban would infringe on the First Amendment rights of 170 million Americans. Haurek asserted that the government has not presented any concrete evidence to support its claims and accused the government of using secret information to justify its actions.
The government’s legal brief also points to another tool that allegedly triggers content suppression based on the use of specific words. While some policies of this tool applied to ByteDance users in China, where the company operates a similar app called Douyin that adheres to Beijing’s strict censorship rules, Justice Department officials suggest that other policies may have been applied to TikTok users outside of China. TikTok has reportedly been investigating the existence of these policies and whether they were ever used in the US around 2022.
The government’s emphasis on Lark data transfers suggests that federal officials do not consider Project Texas, TikTok’s $1.5 billion plan to store US user data on servers owned and maintained by Oracle, sufficient to address national security concerns.
In its legal challenge against the ban, TikTok has primarily relied on arguments that the potential ban violates the First Amendment, as it effectively bars the app from continued operation unless it finds a new owner through a complex divestment process. TikTok contends that divestment would fundamentally alter the platform’s speech, as a new social media entity would lack the algorithm that has driven its success.
The Justice Department, in its response, argues that TikTok’s First Amendment claims are invalid. The government maintains that the law addresses national security concerns without targeting protected speech and that China and ByteDance, as foreign entities, are not shielded by the First Amendment.
TikTok has also argued that the US law discriminates based on viewpoints, citing statements from some lawmakers who criticized what they perceived as an anti-Israel bias on the platform during the war in Gaza. The Justice Department refutes this argument, stating that the law reflects their ongoing concern that China could weaponize technology against US national security, a fear amplified by demands that companies under Beijing’s control relinquish sensitive data to the government. They assert that TikTok, under its current operating structure, is obligated to comply with such demands.
