TikTok has made a stunning revelation, disclosing that it proposed giving the U.S. government the authority to shut down the platform with a kill switch in 2022. This bold move aimed to address lawmakers’ concerns about data protection and national security. The revelation comes as TikTok begins its legal battle against a new law that could ban the app in the U.S. unless its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, divests its ownership.
The contentious legislation, introduced due to fears that TikTok might share American user data with the Chinese government—a claim both TikTok and ByteDance have consistently denied—is being vigorously challenged in court by the companies. They argue the law represents a drastic shift from the U.S. tradition of supporting an open internet and sets a troubling precedent by targeting a specific platform for political reasons.
In a draft “National Security Agreement” proposed in August 2022, TikTok committed to several stringent rules, including adequately funding its data protection units and ensuring ByteDance had no access to U.S. user data. The most dramatic element of this proposal was the “kill switch,” which would allow the government to shut down TikTok if these rules were breached.
While the US government grapples with a potential TikTok ban, users around the world are breathing a sigh of relief thanks to a simple solution
According to a letter reported by the Washington Post, TikTok’s lawyer claims the U.S. government halted substantive negotiations after the new rules were proposed. The letter, dated April 1, 2024, also states that the government ignored requests for further negotiations and did not respond to TikTok’s invitation to inspect its Dedicated Transparency Center in Maryland.
U.S. government did not engage in meaningful settlement
TikTok insists the U.S. government did not engage in meaningful settlement discussions after 2022, despite TikTok’s “kill switch” offer. This mechanism would have granted the U.S. government the “explicit authority to suspend the platform in the United States at its sole discretion” if TikTok failed to comply with certain regulations.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia is set to hear arguments in September for lawsuits filed by TikTok, ByteDance, and TikTok users. The legislation signed by President Joe Biden in April gives ByteDance until January next year to divest TikTok’s U.S. assets or face a ban. The law stems from concerns that data from the platform’s 170 million U.S. users could be handed over to the Chinese government.
TikTok has called the legislation an “unconstitutional ban” and an affront to the U.S. right to free speech, adding that U.S. data remains within the country and is overseen by Oracle under a deal known as Project Texas. However, there have been investigations that found some data was still being shared between TikTok in the U.S. and ByteDance in China.
