Court Rejects TikTok’s Bid To Control Americans

TikTok suffered a major legal setback as a federal court rejected the company’s petition to overturn the law that requires TikTok either to find an American owner or face a ban in the United States as early as January 19, 2025. If the ban is enforced, it could significantly impact the popular made-in-China app’s millions of users in the United States, as well as the company’s global operations.

Since 2020, TikTok (which is owned by ByteDance, a Beijing-based internet technology company) has been embroiled in a legal battle in the U.S., coinciding with the app’s explosive popularity. The app, which became a source of entertainment for bored young people under Covid-19 pandemic lockdowns, is now under scrutiny. As its user base has grown, so have the app’s problems. TikTok’s data collection practices, which include acquiring IP addresses, browsing history, and biometric information, have raised serious privacy and data security concerns.

A Wall Street Journal analysis found that TikTok’s robust algorithm is a major reason why young people are addicted to smartphones. The app often pushes young users “deep into harmful rabbit holes of content” that “glorif[ies] eating disorders, drugs, violence” and makes it difficult for users to escape. Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts said TikTok and social media platforms “are specifically designed to create the digital dependencies that fuel mental illness and anxiety, to fray children’s bonds with their parents and siblings. Federal policy cannot allow this industrial-scale child abuse to continue.”

TikTok is also known to serve as Communist China’s propaganda tool by extending Beijing’s censorship to non-Chinese citizens overseas. The app reportedly instructs its content moderators to “censor videos that mention Tiananmen Square, Tibetan independence, or the banned religious group Falun Gong,” all sensitive subjects that the Chinese government has censored for decades.

In 2020, the Trump administration sought to ban the app from being downloaded in U.S.-based app stores and force a sale of TikTok to U.S.-majority ownership. However, TikTok and its parent company, ByteDance, sued the Trump administration, arguing that a download ban would violate the First Amendment. It’s pretty ironic that a Communist China propaganda and censorship tool presented itself as a defender of free speech in the U.S. Unfortunately, a federal judge sided with TikTok and blocked the administration’s download ban.

ByteDance insisted that U.S. user data is safe because it is stored on U.S. soil, with a backup center in Singapore. However, a 2022 investigative report by BuzzFeed found that ByteDance’s Chinese employees have “repeatedly accessed nonpublic” U.S. user data and “Everything is seen in China.” The report also found a Beijing-based engineer serving as a “Master Admin” who “has access to everything.” This means the Chinese government has access to everything as well.

According to China’s national intelligence law, all Chinese tech companies must turn over any data they collect if the government demands it. Clearly, TikTok and ByteDance have misled the U.S. government when they insisted that U.S. user data is safe from Beijing’s snooping. There is nothing to stop China’s intelligence agencies from mining the U.S. user information TikTok collects and using it to blackmail Americans in the future.

Brendan Carr, a commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for the next chair of the FCC, has been a vocal critic of TikTok. In a 2022 letter to U.S. tech giant Apple and Google, Carr said TikTok “poses an unacceptable national security risk” due to its data harvesting and Beijing’s “unchecked access” to that data, urging these American tech companies to remove the app from their app store. 

The Biden administration’s approach to TikTok has been full of contradictions, leaving many perplexed. The administration regarded TikTok as a valuable medium for reaching young voters and often courted TikTok influencers in embarrassing ways. For instance, in 2022, the Biden administration first invited about 30 TikTok influencers (many of whom had no journalism or foreign policy background) to the White House to receive policy briefings after Russia invaded Ukraine. Then White House officials briefed another group of 70 influencers ahead of President Biden’s State of the Union address.

The Biden White House’s relationship with TikTok changed after Forbes magazine’s disclosure in December 2022 that TikTok had spied on three journalists. This revelation led to the resignation of one ByteDance executive and the firing of another. The mounting evidence of TikTok’s security risks, including the spying incident, played a crucial role in President Biden’s decision to sign legislation to block most federal government devices from using TikTok.

But a little over a year later, President Biden’s reelection campaign ignored the president’s ban and launched an account on TikTok on Super Bowl Sunday. In April, to get Republicans’ support for a $95 billion aid package to Ukraine, President Biden signed legislation, with rare bipartisan support, giving ByteDance nine months to either sell TikTok US to a U.S.-approved buyer or face a nationwide ban as of January 19, 2025.

TikTok and ByteDance filed a lawsuit to challenge the legislation, still on First Amendment grounds, with an additional disclosure that the Chinese government would never bless TikTok’s divestment.

Last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit made a unanimous decision, denying TikTok and ByteDance’s petition to overturn the law. The court pointed out the fallacy of the companies’ First Amendment argument: “The First Amendment exists to protect free speech in the United States. Here, the Government acted solely to protect that freedom from a foreign adversary nation and to limit that adversary’s ability to gather data on people in the United States.” Lawyers representing TikTok and ByteDance said they would appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. However, legal experts see little chance that the Supreme Court will take this case.

TikTok and ByteDance are reportedly lobbying the incoming Trump administration as a last resort after President Trump said during an interview that he still believed TikTok was a national security risk but opposed a ban. Trump’s cabinet picks are reportedly divided on a TikTok ban. No one knows what Trump will do. Given his nature as a dealmaker, the most likely outcome is TikTok’s divestment to an American owner, even though it’s an outcome neither TikTok nor ByteDance wants.

One thing is certain: TikTok U.S. won’t operate as it has been in January, and that is a positive step for our national security — and for the safety and mental health of our youth.