The US government and TikTok will go head-to-head in federal court on Monday as oral arguments begin in a consequential legal case that will determine if or how a popular social media platform used by nearly half of all Americans will continue to operate in the country. Attorneys for the two sides will appear before a panel of judges at the federal appeals court in Washington. TikTok and its China-based parent company, ByteDance, are challenging a U.S. law that requires them to break ties or face a ban in the U.S. by mid-January. The legal battle is expected to reach the U.S. Supreme Court. The law, signed by President Joe Biden in April, was a culmination of a years-long saga in Washington over the short-form video-sharing app, which the government sees as a national security threat due to its connections to China. But TikTok argues the law runs afoul of the First Amendment while other opponents claim it mirrors crackdowns sometimes seen in authoritarian countries abroad. In cour
With some pre-conditions, Nepal has lifted its ban on TikTok, effective Friday, which was initially imposed on November 12 last year
Pew found that 38 per cent of US adults supported a ban last fall and 50 per cent were in favor in March 2023
ByteDance's facility is larger than the earlier-anticipated size - an indication that the borrower is eager to take advantage of Asia's loan market, which is flush with liquidity amid dismal deal flow
Three weeks before Christmas 2021, Nylah Anderson was found lifeless in her mother's closet in suburban Philadelphia
"I felt offended, harassed and degraded in a toxic work environment," Altamirano alleged. The stress allegedly lead to anxiety, depression and complications in her pregnancy
A US appeals court revived on Tuesday a lawsuit filed by the mother of a 10-year-old Pennsylvania girl who died attempting a viral challenge she allegedly saw on TikTok that dared people to choke themselves until they lost consciousness. While federal law generally protects online publishers from liability for content posted by others, the court said TikTok could potentially be found liable for promoting the content or using an algorithm to steer it to children. TikTok makes choices about the content recommended and promoted to specific users, and by doing so, is engaged in its own first-party speech, Judge Patty Shwartz of the 3rd US Circuit Court in Philadelphia wrote in the opinion issued Tuesday. Lawyers for TikTok's parent company, ByteDance, did not immediately return phone and email messages seeking comment. Lawyers for the mother, Tawainna Anderson, had argued that the so-called blackout challenge, which was popular in 2021, appeared on Nylah Anderson's For You" feed after
TikTok attorneys have made the First Amendment a key part of their legal challenge
TikTok has faced intense scrutiny from US concerned about the Chinese government's influence
The Biden administration asked the court to reject lawsuits by TikTok, ByteDance and a group of TikTok creators seeking to block the law that could ban the app used by 170 million Americans
It was the first resolution of an investigation under the 27-country EU's sweeping Digital Services Act, which went into effect in February
The Justice Department sued TikTok on Friday, accusing the company of violating children's online privacy law and running afoul of a settlement it had reached with another federal agency. The complaint, filed together with the Federal Trade Commission in a California federal court, comes as the US and the prominent social media company are embroiled in yet another legal battle that will determine if or how TikTok will continue to operate in the country. The latest lawsuit focuses on allegations that TikTok, a trend-setting platform popular among young users, and its China-based parent company ByteDance violated a federal law that requires kid-oriented apps and websites to get parental consent before collecting personal information of children under 13. It also says the companies failed to honour requests from parents who wanted their children's accounts deleted, and chose not to delete accounts even when the firms knew they belonged to kids under 13. This action is necessary to ..
In March, a source told Reuters the FTC could resolve a probe into TikTok over allegedly faulty privacy and data security practices by either filing suit or reaching a settlement
The app is a streamlined tool for making videos - especially with effects popular on TikTok, the social platform also owned by ByteDance
In a fresh broadside against one of the world's most popular technology companies, the Justice Department late Friday accused TikTok of harnessing the capability to gather bulk information on users based on views on divisive social issues like gun control, abortion and religion. Government lawyers wrote in a brief filed to the federal appeals court in Washington that TikTok and its Beijing-based parent company ByteDance used an internal web-suite system called Lark to enable TikTok employees to speak directly with ByteDance engineers in China. TikTok employees used Lark to send sensitive data about US users, information that has wound up being stored on Chinese servers and accessible to ByteDance employees in China, federal officials said. One of Lark's internal search tools, the filing states, permits ByteDance and TikTok employees in the US and China to gather information on users' content or expressions, including views on sensitive topics, such as abortion or religion. Last year
Outside Washington, the video-sharing platform is waging a parallel battle for public opinion
Outside Washington, the video-sharing platform is waging a parallel battle for public opinion
TikTok owner ByteDance can't avoid the bloc's crackdown on digital giants, a European Union court said Wednesday in a decision that found the video sharing platform falls under a new law that also covers Apple, Google and Microsoft. The EU's General Court rejected ByteDance's legal challenge against being classed as an online "gatekeeper that has to comply with extra obligations under the 27-nation bloc's Digital Markets Act. The rulebook, also known as the DMA, took effect this year and seeks to counter the dominance of Big Tech companies and make online competition fairer by giving consumers more choice. TikTok had argued that it wasn't a gatekeeper but was playing the role of a new competitor in social media taking on entrenched players like Facebook and Instagram owner Meta. The judges, however, decided that since 2018 TikTok had succeeded in increasing its number of users very rapidly and exponentially and that it had rapidly consolidated its position, and even strengthened th
Nato invited 16 content creators from countries including the UK, Germany and France with followings on TikTok, Instagram and other social-media platforms to attend summit in Washington
The FTC was looking into the social media company over potential violations of federal law that protects children on the internet