CONNECTICUT, USA — Tiktok and its Chinese parent company ByteDance dug in their heels this week as they attempt to block a law that forces the app to sell or be banned in the U.S.
“There is concern that the data is being collected and available to the Chinese government, which is considered adversarial to the United States,” John Powers, director of the interactive media and communications graduate program at Quinnipiac University, said.
President Joe Biden recently signed the Protecting Americans From Foreign Adversaries Act that received bipartisan support in the House and Senate, with lawmakers on both sides saying Tiktok poses a threat to national security.
"There's no constitutional right to own property when it is against the national security,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal said.
They link the risk to not just privacy concerns but also propaganda on the short video platform.
“The algorithm has the opportunity, some would say it already is using it, for propaganda purposes to turn 175 million Americans who use TikTok against their own government to support other entities around the world and other causes that the U.S. government finds troubling,” Powers said.
For instance, some lawmakers accused the social media giant of circulating a disproportionate amount of Pro-Palestinian content, in an effort to turn young Americans against Israel. However, the app’s ownership sees it differently.
“Tiktok would argue that this is just simply the natural organic posts, and there's more posts pro-Palestinian on their platform, and so it's just naturally happening,” Powers said. “Others would argue that China, even the TikTok app in their own country is very tightly controlled as far as the algorithm, and of course, China itself bans other social media apps that they don't want in their country, so there's arguments on both sides.”
The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, claimed TikTok is being singled out from other social media companies and efforts to shutdown the app in the U.S. violate First Amendment free speech protections.
“I think the First Amendment is their biggest their best opportunity to pursue and with the argument that as Americans, free speech as a right that, that we have this opportunity to receive whatever information we want to receive and make our own decisions,” Powers said.
TikTok’s parent company currently has no plans to sell.
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Bridgette Bjorlo is an anchor and reporter at FOX61 News. She can be reached at bbjorlo@fox61.com. Follow her on Facebook, X, and Instagram.
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