In response to ByteDance's recent appeal that the US government's new law requiring it to split TikTok's business in the United States is unconstitutional, the US District Court for Appeals in Washington, D.C., earlierMaking a ruling, believing that the US government's actions were within the scope of constitutional protection and did not violate the constitution.
The three judges who made this ruling unanimously reached the same conclusion, believing that the US government's actions were not unconstitutional. The reason is that the purpose of the US government's new law is to prevent US competitors from collecting personal information of citizens in the United States through various means, and it does not involve affecting the freedom of speech of US citizens. Therefore, they rejected ByteDance's appeal on the grounds of affecting the freedom of speech of US citizens.
If ByteDance is unable to continue to appeal, it will be forced to sell its TikTok business in the United States after the new law proposed by the US government officially takes effect on January 2025, 1, otherwise its services will be banned.
Before thisThe US government is worried that the use and sharing of information by as many as 1.7 million American users on TikTok may become a channel for the Chinese government to steal information within the United States. However, TikTok denies sharing data content with the Chinese government. It also directly points out that the new US government law is unconstitutional and affects the freedom of speech of users in the United States. It also emphasizes that data used in the service in the United States will not be transferred overseas, but will only be stored on Oracle's servers in the United States.
However, relevant reports at the beginning of this year pointed out that TikTok and its parent company ByteDance do still share some data, so it is difficult to convince the US government that it has not transmitted any data back to China. At the same time, relevant US government officials also stated that the solutions previously proposed by TikTok still cannot improve the potential national security risks it may pose, so they believe that it is necessary to split its business in the United States.
However, TikTok's appointed lawyer stated that the US government did not conduct any substantive negotiations with TikTok after filing the charges, nor did it respond to TikTok's invitation to US government personnel to visit and inspect the Transparency and Accountability Centers in Maryland.
The BBC in the UK reported that as early as 2022, TikTok had proposed to the US government to provide a "one-click shutdown" switch design, emphasizing that once the US government finds that any TikTok service has any impact on US national security, it can use this switch to shut down TikTok's services in the United States.
