In 2024, the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act was proposed in Congress, again ordering that ByteDance divest due to alleged security concerns and pro-Palestinian bias.
In January 2019, an investigation by the American think tank Peterson Institute for International Economics described TikTok as a "Huawei-sized problem" that posed a national security threat to the West because of the app's popularity with Western users.
[1] ByteDance's founder and CEO Zhang Yiming issued a letter in 2018 stating that his company would "further deepen cooperation" with the ruling Chinese Communist Party to promote its policies.
[4] In response to national security, censorship, and anti-boycott compliance concerns, in October 2019, Senator Marco Rubio asked the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) to open an investigation into TikTok and ByteDance.
[5][6] The same month, Senators Tom Cotton and Chuck Schumer sent a joint letter to the Director of National Intelligence requesting a security review of TikTok and ByteDance.
[10] The same month, following a request by Senator Schumer, U.S. Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy agreed to assess the risks of using TikTok as a recruitment tool.
[26] Patrick Jackson, chief technology officer of privacy company Disconnect, said the app sends an abnormal amount of data—mostly information about the phone—to its server, but there is limited evidence that TikTok shares that data with the Chinese government.
[27] On July 31, 2020, President Donald Trump announced a decision ordering China's ByteDance to divest ownership of the application, and threatened to shut down its U.S. operations through executive action as soon as August 1 if the company did not comply.
"[34] On August 1, ByteDance—which initially sought to maintain a minority interest in a sale to a U.S. buyer—agreed to divest TikTok outright to prevent a ban in the United States and in other countries (including Japan, Pakistan, and Australia) where restrictions are also being considered because of privacy concerns primarily related to its ownership by a China-based firm.
[35][36][37] In a video statement posted on TikTok that morning, Manager of U.S. Operations Vanessa Pappas stated that the company is "not planning on going anywhere" and is "building the safest app because we know it's the right thing to do.
"[45] On August 17, Oracle entered the race to buy TikTok's operations in the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, working with U.S. investors—including General Atlantic and Sequoia Capital, who own stakes in TikTok—to secure a bid.
[47] The lawsuit against the Trump administration's order—formally filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California on August 24—contended that the administration's order was motivated by Trump's efforts to boost re-election support through protectionist trade policies aimed at China; that TikTok and ByteDance were deprived of due process rights under the Fifth Amendment that apply to foreign and domestic businesses; that the Presidential order failed to provide evidence that TikTok was a bona fide security threat or provide "justification for its punitive actions"; that the order had relied on a May 2019 national emergency declaration with respect to "Securing the Information and Communications Technology and Services Supply Chain", rather than invoking a new emergency declaration; and that the purported national security threat identified by the CFIUS was based on "outdated news articles" and did not address demonstrative data security documentation provided by TikTok.
The company iterated that many of its top personnel—including then-CEO Kevin Mayer—were based within the United States and were not subject to Chinese law, and that content moderation was led by an independent, U.S.-based technical staff.
The lawsuit also contended that the order's application of the IEEPA violated a 1994 Congressional amendment expanding that act's list of First Amendment-protected materials to encompass any media, including software technologies, regardless of "format or medium of transmission.
This was because the order involved a "nonjusticiable political question" and Congress has not created a right of action for citizens to challenge use of the IEEPA and the National Emergencies Act.
The partnership—intended to address the Trump administration's concerns over data security, and avoid an outright sale of its business and technological assets that the Chinese government would likely oppose—would involve ByteDance to transfer management of the app's U.S. user data to Oracle's cloud services, and possibly offer it and other investors expanded minority stakes in the U.S. operations whilst allowing ByteDance to keep control of TikTok's business assets and intellectual property.
[65] On June 25, 2021, CNBC reported that "Direction and approvals for all kinds of decision-making, whether it be minor contracts or key strategies, come from ByteDance's leadership, which is based in China."
"[66] In October 2021, following the Facebook Files and controversies about social media ethics, a bipartisan group of lawmakers pressed TikTok, YouTube, and Snapchat on questions of data privacy and moderation for age-appropriate content.
[81] By late 2022, many Republican and Democratic officials who previously opposed the attempted ban began to change their perspectives, with many coming to the conclusion that Trump's actions were justified.
"[82] In March 2023, Trump posted to his social media platform that both Democrats and Republicans had come to "realize that I was right" that a ban on TikTok was needed for reasons of "China Influence and National Security".
Trump argued that while the app's national security and data privacy concerns should still be addressed, banning TikTok would empower Facebook, which he labeled the "enemy of the people.