Despite reports that TikTok did not have to make any concessions under the Biden administration, a case involving the controversial short-form video-sharing platform was brought to a federal appeals court as “TikTok v. Biden ”rejected.
A recent motion to suspend the lawsuit, “with status reports due every 60 days,” shows that the federal government’s potential ban on ByteDance’s own app has not been postponed under the new administration.
However, President Biden is now listed as a defendant in the court confrontation that arose from a first executive order of August 2020 signed by former President Trump. The measure saw the ban on transactions within TikTok after 45 days due to national security concerns.
ByteDance then held talks to sell its government interest in TikTok – which is permanently banned in India due to privacy issues and national security threats – to an American company by the end of that 45-day period and subsequent deadlines. But a judge blocked TikTok’s removal from the app stores in September, and another judge did the same in December.
In addition, the Chinese government has taken steps to prevent ByteDance from completing the sale and TikTok has filed a lawsuit against the US government contesting the above executive order.
However, this latest legal filing raises questions about whether TikTok and ByteDance are actually out of the woods with a potential ban in the US. The document takes a decidedly noncommittal tone when it comes to the fate of the ordered ban, suggesting that a Commerce Department review of TikTok restrictions will enable the government to “determine whether the August Executive Order” described national security threat still justifies the identified prohibitions. ”
“The Department of Commerce remains committed to solid national security defenses, the viability of our economy and the upholding of individual rights and privacy,” continues the order, which TikTok and its legal team have not spoken out against.
The result of this review – and with it the future of TikTok in the US – will be worth a look in the coming weeks and months. A number of individuals and lawsuits have raised far-reaching questions about the security of TikTok users’ personal information and the broader meaning of the issue in the context of national security.
TikTok, which was fined $ 5.7 million in 2019 for allegedly violating the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), was found in an FTC complaint by around 20 stakeholders for Children targeted. Regardless, the platform is facing a privacy-related class action lawsuit from Illinois residents. After a source code leak in January 2021, a hacker describes TikTok as “legitimate spyware”.
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