The U.S. Supreme Court is set to hear oral arguments on January 10 regarding TikTok's appeal against a federal law mandating its shutdown in the United States. The law, known as the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act (PAFACA), was enacted in April 2024 and targets apps controlled by nations deemed "foreign adversaries," including China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea. ByteDance, TikTok's parent company based in China, is required to sell the app to a U.S. entity by January 19.
TikTok contends that PAFACA is unconstitutional and argues that its enforcement would result in the closure of a major communication platform just before a presidential inauguration.
Northwestern University has made several experts available for commentary on this issue. Paul Gowder, a professor at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law, specializes in topics such as democratic theory and technology law. His book “The Networked Leviathan” explores how online platforms could utilize users for regulation tasks like preventing misinformation.
V.S. Subrahmanian, Walter P. Murphy Professor of Computer Science at Northwestern's McCormick School of Engineering, leads research at the Northwestern Security and AI Lab. He commented on the potential security risks posed by apps like TikTok:
“Any app on a person’s phone or tablet can potentially access a tremendous amount of data... Once an app has access to this information, it can, in principle, exfiltrate this information to one or more command-and-control servers at a site chosen by that app."
Subrahmanian highlighted national security concerns related to data exfiltration:
“Any data exfiltrated by TikTok to a command-and-control server is an intelligence goldmine... These kinds of inferences can post a host of unacceptable national security risks..."
He also referenced China's National Intelligence Law:
“Article 7 of China’s National Intelligence Law requires ‘All organizations and citizens shall support...’ Simply put, this suggests that ByteDance... can be forced to hand over data..."
The outcome of this case will have significant implications for TikTok's operations within the United States.