On Friday TikTok asked a court in Union County to dismiss a lawsuit that alleges the social media platform violated Arkansas’ Deceptive Trade Practices Act.
With an estimated one billion users worldwide and 135 million in the U.S., TikTok is considered by some to be the most popular social media platform in the world.
In March Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin’s office filed a lawsuit against Chinese-based company ByteDance — the company that owns TikTok — in Union County Circuit Court.
The lawsuit alleges TikTok violated Arkansas’ Deceptive Trade Practices Act.
Among other things, the lawsuit argues that TikTok failed to fully disclose that TikTok is subject to Chinese law — including “laws that mandate secret cooperation with intelligence activities of the People’s Republic of China.”
The lawsuit also alleges that TikTok “routinely exposes Arkansas consumers’ data, without their knowledge, to access and exploitation by the Chinese Government and Communist Party” and that “TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, has admitted to using data gathered through TikTok to surveil Americans.”
The A.G.’s complaint asks the court to stop TikTok’s actions and award the state up to $10,000 per violation of the Arkansas Deceptive Trade Practices Act.
The attorney general has filed similar lawsuits in Polk County Circuit Court and Cleburne County Circuit Court against Facebook and TikTok respectively for other alleged violations of the Arkansas Deceptive Trade Pactices Act. TikTok and Facebook have asked the courts to dismiss those lawsuits as well.
TikTok’s motion to dismiss the case in Union County alleges that the A.G.’s lawsuit fails to establish jurisdiction over TikTok and fails to “allege any facts that, when properly taken as true, establish a claim for relief.”
You can read more about these lawsuits here.
