DOJ says TikTok collected customers’ views on points like abortion, gun management and faith

The Division of Justice on Friday night time requested a federal court docket to reject TikTok’s bid to have the legislation that would ban it overturned, citing nationwide safety considerations that embrace its alleged use of inner search instruments to gather data on customers’ views round delicate matters. It is available in response to in an try and problem the legislation that now requires its China-based father or mother firm, ByteDance, to promote the app or will probably be banned within the US. into legislation in April.

In one of many paperwork filed with the US Courtroom of Appeals for the DC Circuit, the DOJ says a search device inside Lark, the web-suite system the corporate’s staff use to speak, “allowed ByteDance and TikTok staff in the US and China to gather bulk person data primarily based on the person’s content material or expressions, together with views on gun management, abortion, and faith.” The DOJ additionally argues within the filings that TikTok may very well be used to topic US customers to content material manipulation, and that their delicate data may find yourself saved on servers in China.

TikTok has repeatedly denied the accusations about it being a menace to nationwide safety and has known as the efforts to ban it “unconstitutional.” In its newest assertion responding to the DOJ submitting, posted on X, stated, “Nothing on this transient modifications the truth that the Structure is on our facet.”