US (Washington Insider Magazine)— TikTok has revealed that it offered the U.S. government a “kill switch” mechanism in 2022 to address concerns over data protection and national security. This disclosure comes as the platform engages in legal proceedings against legislation that would ban the app in the U.S. unless its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, sells its stake.
The proposed legislation stems from fears that TikTok might share user data with the Chinese government—a claim both TikTok and ByteDance have consistently denied. In response, TikTok and ByteDance are pushing for the courts to overturn this legislation, arguing that it represents a significant departure from the U.S. tradition of supporting an open internet. They assert that the law creates a dangerous precedent by enabling the government to target a specific platform based on political motivations.
In its legal submissions, TikTok indicated that the U.S. government had refused to engage in serious negotiations after 2022, using the “kill switch” offer to highlight its willingness to compromise. This mechanism would have granted the government the authority to suspend TikTok’s operations in the U.S. at its discretion if the platform failed to comply with specific regulations.
A draft “National Security Agreement” proposed by TikTok in August 2022 included stipulations such as properly funding its data protection units and ensuring that ByteDance did not have access to U.S. user data. According to TikTok, the government could have activated the kill switch if these conditions were violated.
In a letter to the U.S. Department of Justice, TikTok’s legal counsel stated that the government “ceased any substantive negotiations” after the proposal and ignored requests for further discussions, including an invitation to inspect TikTok’s Dedicated Transparency Center in Maryland.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia is set to hold oral arguments in September regarding lawsuits filed by TikTok, ByteDance, and TikTok users.
In April, legislation signed by President Joe Biden mandated that ByteDance divest TikTok’s U.S. assets by January of the following year or face a ban. This law was motivated by concerns that data from the app’s 170 million U.S. users could be accessed by the Chinese government.
TikTok maintains that it does not share user data with foreign entities and views the proposed legislation as an unconstitutional infringement on free speech. The platform asserts that U.S. user data is stored domestically and managed by the American company Oracle under a partnership known as Project Texas.
However, a January 2024 investigation by the Wall Street Journal uncovered evidence that some data continued to be shared between TikTok’s U.S. operations and ByteDance in China. A U.S. government official later stated that the proposed solution would not adequately mitigate the national security risks associated with TikTok, emphasizing that divestment from foreign ownership was essential for addressing these concerns.
