The platform made the disclosure as part of its legal challenge against a law forcing its sale in the US.

TikTok says it offered the US government the power to shut the platform down in an attempt to address lawmakers’ data protection and national security concerns.

It disclosed the “kill switch” offer, which it made in 2022, as it began its legal fight against legislation that will ban the app in America unless Chinese parent company ByteDance sells it.

The law has been introduced because of concerns TikTok might share US user data with the Chinese government - claims it and ByteDance have always denied.

TikTok and ByteDance are urging the courts to strike the legislation down.

“This law is a radical departure from this country’s tradition of championing an open Internet, and sets a dangerous precedent allowing the political branches to target a disfavored speech platform and force it to sell or be shut down,” they argued in their legal submission.

They also claimed the US government refused to engage in any serious settlement talks after 2022, and pointed to the “kill switch” offer as evidence of the lengths they had been prepared to go.

  • ssj2marx@lemmy.ml
    8·
    5 months ago

    the Chinese Government tweaking the algorithm to very subtly shift public opinion

    A new report said that Uyghur hashtags were used more often on Instagram than on TikTok

    The study the article is talking about does not say what you allege it does. Just off the top of my head, two possible explanations are a) if Tiktok is associated with China in the public consciousness, then it stands to reason that it will attract fewer users who are critical of China and more users who are aligned with it, and b) Tiktok simply suppresses all controversial topics regardless of political agenda because it has determined that inoffensive content is more profitable.

    The second one seems the most likely to me - remember that Tiktok is the reason why kids say “unalive” because they’re afraid that the word “kill” will get picked up by auto moderation and prevent their post from being shared.