TikTok has been caught both censoring and spying on Americans on behalf of a hostile foreign government.
A district court legal brief revealed how TikTok was censoring content at Chinese Communist Party (CCP) behest. This comes as the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has accused TikTok of data collection that poses a national security risk. This is why multiple politicians, especially Republicans, have called to ban or force the sale of TikTok.
The Washington Times cited a legal brief filed July 26 on TikTok’s censorship with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. The brief reportedly cited Casey Blackburn in the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence to affirm, “Intelligence reporting further demonstrates that ByteDance and TikTok Global have taken action in response to [Chinese government] demands to censor content outside of China.” The CCP owns a board seat and maintains a financial stake in TikTok’s parent company ByteDance.
Unfortunately, the legal brief was full of “heavy redactions,” according to The Washington Times, meaning it is unclear who and what was specifically censored at the CCP’s bidding. TikTok has previously censored content about the 1989 CCP Tiananmen Square massacre and Chinese government persecution in Tibet. In 2020, TikTok’s UK director of public policy confessed that the app had censored content criticizing CCP genocide of Uyghurs.
The legal brief comes just after the DOJ urged a federal appeals court to reject TikTok’s challenge to a law requiring ByteDance to sell the U.S. assets for TikTok or face a ban on the popular app. Reuters quoted the DOJ, “The serious national-security threat posed by TikTok is real.”
The DOJ added, “TikTok provides the Chinese government the means to undermine U.S. national security in two principal ways: data collection and covert content manipulation … The United States is not required to wait until its foreign adversary takes specific detrimental actions before responding to such a threat.” TikTok’s extensive data collection has long been a concern given Chinese ByteDance’s access.
TikTok has a track record of censorship. MRC Free Speech America found in 2022 that 11 pro-free speech organizations had been “permanently banned” on TikTok.
Conservatives are under attack. Contact TikTok via email at communitymanager@tiktok.com and demand Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment and provide transparency. If you have been censored, contact us at the Media Research Center contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.
