TikTok is in an even worse light in the United States now that it has been revealed that the social media app from China’s ByteDance is funnelling sensitive information about the political views of American end users to China. The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) reported this in a recent notice to a U.S. federal court of appeals.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice, TikTok forwarded sensitive information about (political) views of U.S. end users to China via an internal communication system called Lark. In particular, this involved views on topics such as abortion, the right to bear arms and religion.
The Lark system was developed to allow ByteDance’s U.S. employees to communicate internally with their colleagues in China. According to the U.S. Justice Department, the tool transmits data that eventually ends up on servers in China.
Collecting sensitive data
One of the tools in Lark allows U.S. and Chinese employees to collect sensitive data from TikTok users based on the content end users create or their expressions as responses. Including, therefore, those on sensitive topics such as abortion or religion.
In addition, another tool from ByteDance could suppress content on the platform based on certain policies or keywords. Although this tool would have been deployed only in China, the DoJ does not rule out that Bytedance may have deployed it in other countries.
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Lawsuit and possible ban
The new allegations are grist to the mill of U.S. authorities. The U.S. government has already accused the platform of unauthorized data collection of American citizens. This data would end up with the Chinese government and possibly be used to influence users in the US. A possible ban of the social media platform in the US is now a serious possibility.
The new discoveries only strengthen the U.S. government’s belief in ByteDance’s potentially bad intentions. Nor does this discovery strengthen faith in the social media giant’s so-called Project Texas. This plan, which involves a 1.5 billion dollar (1.38 billion euro) investment, includes having TikTok store American users’ data on U.S. soil, specifically on Oracle servers.
TikTok’s response
In response, TikTok maintains that the U.S. government’s arguments do not hold water and that any ban would violate the right to free speech enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. According to the social media giant, this would be detrimental to 170 million end users.
The lawsuit against TikTok continues in September.
Also read: U.S. Senate passes bill that may ban TikTok