Cybernews reports that TikTok and its parent firm ByteDance have been accused by U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar of gathering exorbitant amounts of data from its 170 million American users, which could be misused for espionage and extortion during a Friday hearing before the Supreme Court.
"There is evidence ByteDance has taken action to misuse data at the PRC's request outside of China," said Prelogar. "There's also evidence in the record that ByteDance has been asked by the PRC to undertake efforts to censor content and manipulate the platform at the behest of the Chinese government."
In making the claim, Prelogar cited ByteDance's admission of abusing U.S. data for spying on journalists in 2022, as well as Chinese government requests seeking the company's assistance in monitoring Hong Kong-based dissidents and the Uyghur population in China.
While ByteDance and TikTok lawyer Noel Francisco sought the deferral of law imposing the sale of TikTok, Prelogar argued that TikTok's lawyer was only playing for more time, noting that the divestiture notice was known by TikTok since 2020.
