Biden's Use of TikTok Cited to Support Company's Lawsuit Against the Government

Spencer Brown | May 08, 2024 1:30 PM

In the lawsuit filed this week by TikTok and its parent company ByteDance challenging Congress' law requiring its sale to an entity in a non-adversarial country, lawyers for the Chinese social media company cite President Joe Biden's campaign account on the platform to argue the divest-or-be-banned legislation ought to be struck down.

One of the claims made in the lawsuit is that the law at issue is based on "at most speculation, not 'evidence'" of TikTok being used for nefarious purposes. Lawyers argue in the complaint that there isn't "evidence that TikTok is actually compromising Americans' data security by sharing it with the Chinese government or spreading pro-China propaganda," even though TikTok's lawsuit elsewhere admits that the company is an asset that the Chinese Communist Party won't allow to be sold.

To back up their claim that TikTok is not being used by the CCP in a way that's dangerous to Americans, the company's lawyers state that the "conjectural nature" of such concerns "are further underscored by President Biden's decision to continue to maintain a TikTok account for his presidential campaign even after signing the Act into law."

What's more, "Congressional supporters of the Act have also maintained campaign accounts on TikTok," the lawsuit adds. "This continued use of TikTok by President Biden and Members of Congress undermines the claim that the platform poses an actual threat to Americans."

From TikTok’s legal petition: “President Biden’s decision to continue to maintain a TikTok account…undermines the claim that the platform poses an actual threat to Americans.”

Biden is putting politics ahead of national security. He should delete his TikTok account immediately. pic.twitter.com/v6UXdqy7Bp
— Michael Sobolik (@michaelsobolik) May 8, 2024

Ultimately, as Townhall reported earlier this week, TikTok's biggest problem is that the Chinese Communist Party will not allow the app, especially its addiction-spurring algorithm, to be sold as required by the law. The 270-day timeframe in which TikTok must change hands is secondary to the fact that the CCP won't let the technology go — confirming TikTok's status as an important asset to the genocidal regime in Beijing.