The United States of America wants TikTok to be sold to a non-Chinese company if it must remain in the American market.
This is as the United States of America’s intelligence agencies have raised concerns over security threat in the country through the video-sharing social media App.
According to the US intelligence unit, the safety of the entire US citizenry might be at risk if TikTok remains in the hands of Chinese-based company ByteDance as such company could easily bow to the pressures of the Chinese government who have in turn, been in a long-term economic war with the United States.
In a recent statement, officials at the US justice department revealed that the intelligence unit are wary that China can “weaponize” mobile apps used by Americans and that this could lead to a data breach, giving China access to relevant data of millions of Americans registered on the mobile App – a quest it says China has long embarked upon in a bid to gain competitive advantage over the US.
The United States on the other hand, appears to be committed to protecting the interest of the entire nation. Early this year, President of the US, Joe Biden reportedly signed a bill that set mid-January 2025 as deadline for TikTok to be sold out to a non-Chinese buyer or cease its operations in the US as it risks a ban.
According to available data, the White House can extend the deadline by 90 days if the owners of the video sharing app do not comply with the directives provided in the bill signed by the US president.
Following President Biden’s signing of the bill, TikTok, while reacting to the provisions of the bill, reportedly filed a lawsuit in a Washington federal court arguing that the law infringes on its rights of Free Speech according to the First Amendment.
According to TikTok, the demands by the US Justice Department that its leadership should be bought by a non-Chinese company is “simply not possible” — and not on the timeline required.
But the US Justice Department recently filed a response to TikTok’s civil suit countering its claims and arguing that the law addresses national security concerns, not speech.
The Justice Department further argued that TikTok’s Chinese parent company ByteDance is not able to claim First Amendment rights here as it further claimed that ByteDance could, and would, comply with Chinese government demands for data about US users or yield to pressure to censor or promote content on the platform.
According to senior justice department officials who spoke during a briefing, “the goal of this law is to ensure that young people, old people and everyone in between is able to use the platform in a safe manner.”
A senior justice department official added, “And to use it in a way confident that their data is not ultimately going back to the Chinese government and what they’re watching is not being directed by or censored by the Chinese government.
“It’s clear that the Chinese government has for years been pursuing large, structured datasets of Americans through all sorts of manner, including malicious cyber activity; including efforts to buy that data from data brokers and others, and including efforts to build sophisticated AI models that can utilize that data.”
