Justice Department responds to TikTok lawsuit, argues algorithm could allow Chinese government to influence US elections

CNN —

Allowing TikTok to continue to be operated by its current parent company could allow the Chinese government to covertly influence US elections, the Justice Department said in a court filing late Friday.

In a federal appeals court filing, prosecutors raised concerns that TikTok’s algorithm could be used in a “secret manipulation” campaign to “influence the views of Americans for its own purposes.”

“Among other things, it would allow a foreign government to illicitly interfere with our political system and political discourse, including our elections,” prosecutors wrote. The filing added, “if, for example, the Chinese government were to determine that the outcome of a particular American election as sufficiently important to Chinese interests.”

“Allowing the Chinese government to remain poised to use TikTok to maximum effectiveness at a moment of extreme importance presents an unacceptable threat to national security,” prosecutors wrote.

The filing is in response to a federal lawsuit TikTok brought against the US government in May in an attempt to block a law that could force a nationwide ban of the app. That law, which President Joe Biden signed in April, says that TikTok must find a new owner by mid-January 2025 or it will be banned from the United States entirely.

The filing Friday marks the first time the federal government has responded to the lawsuit. The legal battle could determine whether US security concerns about TikTok’s links to China can trump the First Amendment rights of TikTok’s 170 million US users.

In their lawsuit, TikTok and Bytedance say that US law is unconstitutional because it runs afoul of free speech rights and prevents Americans from accessing lawful information.

“For the first time