The famous social media app TikTok has been facing recent controversy as they are being sued by the government.

The app has been accused of violating state consumer protection laws and has ‘failed’ to adequately respond to these claims in an orderly manner. This has resulted in a ban of TikTok on government devices in 27 states as of April 2023. This is an important decision as it opens a door that can oppress social media apps if it holds content that the government finds unfavorable. This could potentially create stricter policies for users to follow and deter them from expressing their thoughts; this could silence the people.

Because TikTok has failed to preserve evidence within the messaging for the app, it is making the case harder to carry out and what was supplied is not easily digestible.  The government is insisting that the company switches owners as they do not feel it is safe to be partially owned by China. TikTok argued that this change would not solve anything that the government is afraid of.

“If protecting national security is the objective, divestment doesn’t solve the problem: a change in ownership would not impose any new restrictions on data flows or access,” Maureen Shanahan, a communications professsional, said. “The best way to address concerns about national security is with the transparent, U.S.-based protection of U.S. user data and systems, with robust third-party monitoring, vetting, and verification, which we are already implementing.”

This case may seem insignificant, but the message sent by the ruling is important and could be vital to how cases like this are handled in the future. It may just be a social media app, but in the future it could be people getting brought to court for their posts.