US DOJ tells court to reject TikTok challenge to crackdown law

(Corrects headline to add dropped space, no change to story text)

By David Shepardson

(Reuters) -The Department of Justice late on Friday asked a U.S. appeals court to reject legal challenges to a law requiring China-based ByteDance to divest TikTok’s U.S. assets by Jan. 19 or face a ban.

“The serious national-security threat posed by TikTok is real,” the department said. “TikTok provides the Chinese government the means to undermine U.S. national security in two principal ways: data collection and covert content manipulation.”

TikTok and parent company ByteDance and a group of TikTok creators have filed suits to block the law that could ban the app used by 170 million Americans.

The DOJ’s filing details wide-ranging national security concerns about ByteDance’s ownership of TikTok.

“China’s long-term geopolitical strategy involves developing and pre-positioning assets that it can deploy at opportune moments,” the government said.

“The United States is not required to wait until its foreign adversary takes specific detrimental actions before responding to such a threat.”

The government also is filing a classified document with the court that will detail additional security concerns about ByteDance’s ownership of TikTok as well as declarations from the FBI, Office of the Director of National Intelligence and Justice Department’s National Security Division.

The Justice Department argues TikTok under Chinese ownership poses a serious national security threat to Americans because of its access to vast personal data of Americans and will argue China can covertly manipulate information that Americans consume via TikTok.

TikTok, which has repeatedly denied it would ever share U.S. user data with China, did not immediately comment.

Signed by President Joe Biden on April 24, the law gives ByteDance until Jan. 19 to sell TikTok or face a ban. The White House says it wants to see Chinese-based ownership ended on national security grounds, but not a ban on TikTok.

The department rejecting all of the arguments raised by TikTok, including that the law violates the First Amendment free speech rights of Americans that use the short video app, saying the law is aimed at addressing national security concerns, not speech and is aimed at China’s ability to exploit TikTok to access Americans sensitive personal information.

The government added TikTok’s efforts to protect U.S. user data are insufficient.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia will hold oral arguments on the legal challenge on Sept. 16, putting the fate of TikTok in the middle of the final weeks of the 2024 presidential election.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has joined TikTok and told an interviewer in June he would never support a TikTok ban. Vice President Kamala Harris, who is running for president, joined TikTok this week.

The law prohibits app stores like Apple (NASDAQ:) and Alphabet (NASDAQ:)’s Google from offering TikTok and bars internet hosting services from supporting TikTok unless it is divested by ByteDance.

Driven by worries among U.S. lawmakers that China could access data on Americans or spy on them with the app, the measure was passed overwhelmingly in the U.S. Congress just weeks after being introduced.