Although both presidential candidates are campaigning on TikTok and hoping to attract more voters through the platform — Trump even announced that he would "never shut down TikTok" if he wins a four-year term in the election in three months' time, but that doesn't stop the current United States administration from continuing to launch a tough judicial crackdown on the most popular short-form video social platform.
On Friday, the United States Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission filed a lawsuit against TikTok and its parent company, ByteDance, and affiliates, alleging "widespread violations" of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, which prohibits online platforms from collecting, using or disclosing personal information from children under the age of 13 without parental permission.
Image source: Visual China
Since the beginning of this year, TikTok has encountered a new round of restrictions and pressure in United States.
United States President Joe Biden signed a decree on April 24 requiring ByteDance to sell TikTok by January 19, 2025, or ban TikTok from continuing to operate in the United States market.
TikTok has always insisted that the platform is technically, commercially or legally impossible to be spun off from ByteDance, and that the divestiture will make TikTok an empty shell, depriving it of the technology to tailor innovative and expressive content for each user.
In response to the ban, TikTok and ByteDance filed a lawsuit in the United States Colombia District Circuit Court of Appeals on May 7, alleging that the ban signed by Biden violated the United States Constitution, specifically the First Amendment's protections for free speech.
On June 20, TikTok said in a court filing that it had spent more than a year negotiating with the United States government in the hope of reaching a 90-page national security agreement that would provide multiple safeguards to meet the government's regulatory requirements, but the United States Congress ignored the foundation laid by both sides when it enacted a TikTok ban earlier this year.
The United States Department of Justice issued a statement on the same day saying that the bill "addresses key national security issues in a manner consistent with First Amendment and other constitutional provisions."
The Ministry of Justice has announced that it will defend the relevant legislation in court. In addition to actively using lobby groups and lawyers with high fees close to the United States government to attack and defend at the legislative, executive and judicial levels, TikTok also pressured the United States Congress by laying out advertisements totaling millions of dollars, and also funded content creators on the TikTok platform to file lawsuits against the United States government, such as 8 TikTok content creators appeared in court as plaintiffs. Accusations that the United States banning TikTok would trample on their right to free speech protection in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.
The lawsuit between the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission is the latest in the ongoing offensive and defensive between TikTok and the United States government, and continues to push the relationship further into tensions.
In June, the United States Federal Trade Commission filed a complaint with the Department of Justice containing two pieces of illegal TikTok content. At that time, a person familiar with the matter revealed that the Department of Justice may no longer pursue TikTok's "problem" of misleading United States consumers about data security, and instead turn to charges that TikTok and ByteDance may violate the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act.
Legislation aimed at big tech companies to protect children's safety and privacy, which the United States has been actively promoting, received new advances at the end of July. On the 30th, the United States Senate overwhelmingly passed the Children's Online Safety Act, further strengthening the safety and privacy protection of children.
The United States government believes that millions of children under the age of 13 use TikTok, and the latter has been collecting and retaining the personal information of these child users. United States Federal Trade Commission Chairwoman Lena ·Khan said: "TikTok knowingly and repeatedly violates children's privacy, threatening the safety of millions of children across the country. The DOJ said TikTok knowingly allowed children to create accounts, share clips and messages with adults and others, and held "varied" personal information about children without the permission of their parents, as well as failing to delete children's accounts at parental request.
TikTok issued a statement disagreeing with the allegations, noting that "many of these allegations are related to past events or practices, are inconsistent with facts, or have been resolved." We are proud of our efforts to protect children, and we will continue to update and improve our platform."
In the coming months, the two sides will continue to "fight" in two theaters, both in and out of the courtroom. When Biden withdraws from the election, the Democratic Party re-sends Harris to compete with Trump for the presidential election, and begins to gradually narrow Trump's lead in the future and may even overtake the premise that Trump's "will never shut down TikTok" may be disappointed, of course, TikTok may not have hoped that Trump would win the election and then fulfill its promises, because Trump's promises are not always fulfilled, in fact, Trump himself may not have taken this sentence as a promise. (Fortune Chinese Network)
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