Justice Department responds to TikTok lawsuit, argues algorithm could allow Chinese government to influence US elections

Allowed TikTok continuing to be operated by its current parent company could allow the Chinese government to covertly influence U.S. elections, the Justice Department said in a court filing Friday.

In a case filed in federal appeals court, prosecutors raised concerns that TikTok’s algorithm could be used in a campaign of “covert manipulation” to “influence the opinions of Americans for their own ends.”

“Among other things, it would allow a foreign government to unlawfully interfere in our political system and political discourse, including our elections,” the prosecutors wrote. The document added: “if, for example, the Chinese government determined that the outcome of a particular American election is sufficiently important to Chinese interests.”

“Allowing the Chinese government to remain prepared to use TikTok with maximum effectiveness at a time of extreme importance poses an unacceptable threat to national security,” prosecutors wrote.

The request is a response to a federal action that TikTok filed against the US government in May in an attempt to block a law that could force a nationwide ban on the app. This law, which President Joe Biden signed it in Aprilsays TikTok must find a new owner by mid-January 2025 or be banned entirely in the United States.

Friday’s order marks the first time the federal government has responded to the lawsuit. The legal battle could determine whether U.S. security concerns about TikTok’s ties to China can trump the First Amendment rights of TikTok’s 170 million U.S. users.

In their lawsuit, TikTok and Bytedance claim that the US law is unconstitutional because it conflicts with free speech rights and prevents Americans from accessing lawful information.

“For the first time in history,” TikTok’s lawyers wrote in the filing, “Congress has enacted a law that subjects a single named speech platform to a permanent nationwide ban and prohibits all Americans from participating in a single online community of more than 1 billion people around the world.”

The process follows years of US allegations that TikTok’s ties to China could expose Americans’ personal information to the Chinese government.

The Justice Department now says TikTok is misapplying the First Amendment. “The statute addresses national security concerns unique to TikTok’s connection with a hostile foreign power, and not any suppression of protected speech,” the DOJ document says, adding that ByteDance could sell TikTok to a U.S. affiliate and then sell the app. could run in the US without interruption.

Senior justice officials, speaking about the lawsuit, said the Justice Department is concerned about any efforts by the People’s Republic of China, or PRC, to “weaponize technology,” such as applications and software that run on phones used In the USA.

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One official said these concerns are “heightened when these autocratic nations demand and force, as the PRC does, companies under their control to hand over sensitive data to the Chinese government in secret.”

Some department officials have already spoken out about the security risks of the video app, although not in the context of this lawsuit.

Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco warned against using the app last year, saying that “any company doing business in China in this regard is subject to Chinese national security laws, which require the surrender of data to the State, and There is a reason why we need to be very worried.”

“I don’t use TikTok and I wouldn’t advise anyone to do so,” Monaco said.

“The TikTok app collects vast amounts of sensitive data from its 170 million US users,” the DOJ document says. “This collection includes data on users’ precise locations, viewing habits, and private messages – and even includes data on phone contacts of users who don’t use TikTok.”

Some of the users TikTok is collecting data about are teenagers who could become “family members or potential future government employees,” prosecutors wrote.

Friday’s document makes clear that law enforcement authorities believe TikTok could — and in some cases — followed Chinese government guidance.

Prosecutors wrote that the proprietary algorithm that TikTok uses “can be manually manipulated, and its location in China would allow the Chinese government to covertly control the algorithm – and thus covertly shape the content that American users receive – for its own malign purposes.”

Law enforcement authorities know of a tool used in China, for example, that allows TikTok to suppress certain content from the app. While the tool is not believed to have been used in the U.S., department officials said the existence of this technology has raised major concerns about whether the app could collect, censor or even promote certain content to American users.

Senior officials also expressed concerns about employees’ ability to gather information in bulk based on a user’s content that discussed issues such as gun control, abortion and religion.

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