U.S. President Donald Trump reacts as U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright delivers remarks in the Oval Office at the White House (REUTERS)
MediaPost reports President Donald Trump is appealing a district court judge's rejection of a proposed settlement with TikTok over charges that the app violated the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act.
The deal the judge is rejecting vacates a 2019 settlement between TikTok and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) over the charge that the company's predecessor, Musical.ly, violated the same law by collecting personal information from users younger than 13
“Last month, U.S. District Court Judge George Wu in the Central District of California refused to approve the agreement, writing that the government failed to prove the 2019 order should be set aside,” reports MediaPost. “That order required TikTok to pay $5 million and comply with numerous conditions going forward.”
But the Trump Justice Department said in its bid to scrap the deal that those conditions were "no longer necessary to serve the public interest." The government claims that the prior settlement grew out of practices by Musical.ly, as opposed to "the TikTok platform as it exists and operates today."
ByteDance potentially sweetened its problems with the White House by selling TikTok's U.S. operations to a joint venture of investors including Oracle, which is run by Larry Ellison — a Trump ally and MAGA adherent working to snap up centrist news into a MAGA-curious empire. That empire, say critics, will not be capable of criticizing Trump or the Republican Party, making it a de-facto subsidiary of the GOP.
But Wu complicated the TIKTOK side of things by ruling that the change in ownership did not justify vacating the prior order.
"While there have been significant legal developments concerning TikTok in the years since the Consent Order was issued, nothing has changed regarding defendants’ legal obligations under COPPA," wrote the judge, using an acronym for the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act. “… There is nothing inherent in the ownership change that renders the aims of the Consent Order accomplished or its enforcement no longer necessary.”
The deal Wu tossed would have resolved a 2024 complaint alleging that the app — under the ownership of the Chinese company ByteDance — allowed children 12 and under to sidestep a more restrictive "Kids Mode" app setting that would have blocked data collection.
Wu allowed the Justice Department to amend its request for settlement approval and refile, but the administration said in papers filed Thursday that it planned to appeal Wu's order.
"After meeting and conferring, the United States declines to renew its consent motion and rests on the current record before this Court, because there is nothing further for this Court to consider," Trump DOJ argued.