US DOJ tells court to reject TikTok challenge to crackdown law

27/7/2024 12:38

        The Department of Justice late on Friday asked a U.S. appeals court to reject legal challenges to a law requiring China-based ByteDance to divest TikTok's U.S. assets by Jan. 19 or face a ban.
        
        "The serious national-security threat posed by TikTok is real," the department said. "TikTok provides the Chinese government the means to undermine U.S. national security in two principal ways: data collection and covert content manipulation."
        
        TikTok and parent company ByteDance and a group of TikTok creators have filed suits to block the law that could ban the app used by 170 million Americans.
        The DOJ's filing details wide-ranging national security concerns about ByteDance's ownership of TikTok.
        
        "China's long-term geopolitical strategy involves developing and pre-positioning assets that it can deploy at opportune moments," the government said.
        
        "The United States is not required to wait until its foreign adversary takes specific detrimental actions before responding to such a threat."