The U.S. Department of Justice is escalating its battle with TikTok and, by extension, its parent company ByteDance. The government is suing the company for illegally collecting the data of users under 13 without permission from those children’s parents.
The suit alleges TikTok knew these users were under 13 years old when they allowed them to make accounts on the app. What’s worse, the DoJ claims that when parents asked TikTok to delete their kids’ accounts, the company frequently did not oblige.
There are two key violations at play here, according to the government: The DoJ believes TikTok violated the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, which has strict rules about tracking kids’ activity online. The Justice Department also says TikTok violated a 2019 agreement the company made with the government, in which TikTok would both let parents know before they collected data from children, as well as delete videos from users under the age of 13.
TikTok and the U.S. are at odds
This is just the latest development in the battle between TikTok and the U.S. government. Congress has been after TikTok for years, seeing the app as a major security risk for Americans. ByteDance is based in China, which means it is beholden to the Chinese government’s data requests. The U.S. government believes this is a huge vulnerability, potentially allowing the Chinese government to harvest American user data, as well as influence the content users in the U.S. actually see.
Earlier this year, Congress got their wish, when they passed a bill that would ban the app in the U.S. unless ByteDance divested from the app. President Biden signed the bill into law, which means ByteDance either needs to sell, or risk losing its hundreds of millions of American users. For a full explanation of the situation, check out my timeline of the TikTok ban.
TikTok shot back, however, suing the U.S. over this bill, citing constitutional violations. Now, there are two lawsuits between the U.S. and TikTok, and a looming ban. However you slice it, things aren’t looking great for so many people’s favorite short-form video app.