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The US Justice Department has accused TikTok of gathering user opinions on sensitive topics such as gun control and abortion through an internal system that allowed data to be transferred to China.
What’s the deal: In a court filing, the Justice Department accuses TikTok of using an internal system named “Lark” to gather and transfer sensitive user data—including opinions on controversial issues such as gun control, abortion, and religion—to ByteDance employees in China. The government claims that this capability poses serious national security risks, as it could enable the Chinese government to manipulate content on the platform, potentially influencing American public opinion and undermining democracy.
More on “Lark”: Lark is an internal communication and collaboration tool utilized by ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, to connect its employees worldwide. This system allows TikTok staff in the U.S. to interact directly with ByteDance engineers in China, facilitating the transfer of sensitive user data, including personal and potentially controversial information.
What Justice Department lawyers argue: In a court filing, lawyers for the DOJ wrote, “Among other things, it would allow a foreign government to illicitly interfere with our political system and political discourse, including our elections. 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.”
What TikTok is saying: In a statement, a spokesman for TikTok said, “The TikTok ban would silence 170 million Americans’ voices, violating the 1st Amendment. As we’ve said before, the government has never put forth proof of its claims, including when Congress passed this unconstitutional law. Today, once again, the government is taking this unprecedented step while hiding behind secret information. We remain confident we will prevail in court.”
