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 might ban it overturned, citing nationwide safety considerations that embrace its alleged use of inside search instruments to gather info on customers’ views round delicate subjects. It is available in response to in an try and problem the legislation that now requires its China-based guardian firm, ByteDance, to promote the app or it is going to be banned within the US. into legislation in April.

In one of many paperwork filed with the US Court docket of Appeals for the DC Circuit, the DOJ says a search instrument 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 info based mostly 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 info might find yourself saved on servers in China.

TikTok has repeatedly denied the accusations about it being a risk 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, mentioned, “Nothing on this temporary adjustments the truth that the Structure is on our facet.”