DOJ suing TikTok over alleged ‘widespread’ child privacy violations
(WASHINGTON) — The Justice Department has filed a lawsuit against TikTok and its parent company, ByteDance, accusing the social media giant of unlawfully collecting and retaining data from children in violation of United States privacy laws.
The civil consumer protection complaint filed Friday in federal court in California accuses TikTok of collecting a “wide variety” of personal information from children who created accounts on the app dating back to 2019 through the present day.
The department further alleges that even when children created accounts in TikTok’s designated “Kids Mode,” the company still unlawfully collected and retained children’s email addresses and other personal information without notifying or getting consent from parents.
The alleged privacy violations “have resulted in millions of children under 13 using the regular TikTok app, subjecting them to extensive data collection and allowing them to interact with adult users and access adult content,” the department said in a release announcing the lawsuit.
“The Department is deeply concerned that TikTok has continued to collect and retain children’s personal information despite a court order barring such conduct,” acting Associate Attorney General Benjamin Mizer said in a statement. “With this action, the Department seeks to ensure that TikTok honors its obligation to protect children’s privacy rights and parents’ efforts to protect their children.”
A TikTok spokesperson disputed the allegations, saying many “relate to past events and practices that are factually inaccurate or have been addressed.”
“We are proud of our efforts to protect children, and we will continue to update and improve the platform,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “To that end, we offer age-appropriate experiences with stringent safeguards, proactively remove suspected underage users, and have voluntarily launched features such as default screentime limits, Family Pairing, and additional privacy protections for minors.”
The lawsuit against the company was widely expected after the Federal Trade Commission in June announced it had referred a complaint to the DOJ following an investigation of TikTok and ByteDance’s alleged violations under the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act.
TikTok said at the time it disagreed with the FTC’s allegations, which it argued were either inaccurate or outdated policy practices the company had already addressed.
The lawsuit also comes just days after the Justice Department argued in court filings that TikTok poses a unique threat to U.S. national security as it sought to defend a newly passed law that would require the company to sell its American-based operations or risk an all-out ban. The company has sued to block enforcement of the law before it takes effect in January, arguing it is unconstitutional and would violate its more than 170 million American users’ First Amendment rights.
(WASHINGTON) — With 70 days before Election Day as of Tuesday, both Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump get back to campaigning with Harris in Georgia on Wednesday and Trump in Wisconsin on Thursday.
Trump’s running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, campaigned in Michigan while Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz picks up the trail on Wednesday in Boston.
Here’s how the news is developing…
Harris continues Georgia bus tour, Walz heads to North Carolina
Harris is continuing her tour with two stops at local businesses in Chatham County in Georgia. She will be joined by Georgia Rep. Nikema Williams.
Later Thursday, Harris will deliver remarks at a rally in Savannah.
Her running mate, Gov. Tim Walz, will head to North Carolina for a “local political event” and a campaign reception.
-ABC News’ Will McDuffie
Harris, Walz make campaign stop at Georgia high school
Vice President Kamala Harris and Gov. Tim Walz stopped by Liberty County High School in Georgia as part of their bus tour and were greeted by the school’s principal and superintendent and met with the school marching band during rehearsal.
Harris and Walz delivered brief remarks to band members, football players and faculty. After welcoming the class to the “role model club,” Harris told the class that as “leaders” the nation is “counting” on them.
“You are showing what hard work can achieve, what discipline, what teamwork. And that’s the stuff of greatness,” she said.
She continued with a music metaphor that encouraged them to keep up their hard work.
“I will tell you I was in band when I was your age,” she said. “And all that you all are doing, it requires a whole lot of rehearsal, a whole lot of practice, long hours, right? Sometimes you hit the note, sometimes you don’t, right? All that practice makes for beautiful music.”
-ABC News’ Gabriella Abdul-Hakim, Fritz Farrow and Will McDuffie
Harris spokesman defends joint interview
A spokesman for the Harris-Walz campaign defended Wednesday the decision to make the vice president’s first televised interview as the Democratic presidential nominee a joint interview with her running mate Gov. Tim Walz.
Ian Sams responded on X to a post by journalist Mark Knoller who questioned if CNN should have “insisted on a one-on-one interview,” by saying that “The joint ticket interview is an election year summer tradition going back 20 years.”
“Kerry/Edwards, Obama/Biden, Romney/Ryan, Trump/Pence, Clinton/Kaine, Biden/Harris all did them. Almost always right around the conventions. Harris/Walz join this rich tradition on CNN tomorrow,” he said.
-ABC News’ Will McDuffie, Gabriella Abdul-Hakim and Fritz Garrow
Vance claims he doesn’t need to prepare for a debate
Vance told reporters he’s preparing for the October vice presidential debate by talking to people on the campaign trail, contending he doesn’t need other preparation against Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.
“Look, the way I’m doing debate prep is by spending time with these fine people. This is how I do debate prep is to get out there. You get out there, you talk to people, you talk about the issues that matter,” Vance said.
“We don’t need to prepare for a debate with Tim Walz. We need to get out there and talk. We need to get out there. Look, we need to get out there and talk to the American people. That’s the biggest way that we’re going to prepare for that debate on October the first,” he added.
-ABC News’ Soo Rin Kim and Hannah Demissie
Vance says Harris ‘can go to hell’ for criticizing Trump for Arlington Cemetery visit
Sen. JD Vance continued to defend Trump’s visit to Arlington Cemetery during a campaign event Wednesday in Erie, Pennsylvania, and went on the attack against Harris, blaming her for the deaths of 13 soldiers three years ago.
“Look, sometimes mistakes happen. That’s just the nature of government, the nature of military service. But to have those 13 Americans lose their lives and not fire a single person is disgraceful. Kamala Harris is disgraceful,” Vance said.
“We’re gonna talk about a story out of those 13 brave innocent Americans who lost their lives, it’s that Kamala Harris is so asleep at the wheel that she won’t even do an investigation into what happened, and she wants to yell at Donald Trump because he showed up. She can, go to hell,” he continued.
The federal government conducted a probe into the final days of the war and American withdrawal and the Pentagon’s Central Command concluded in 2022 that the attack was not preventable despite others’ assertions that it was preventable.
The Pentagon has conducted multiple rounds of reviews, including the latest review published in April that reaffirmed the initial investigation’s findings that the attack was not preventable.
Congress has also scrutinized the attack and heard from many military leaders, including former Marine Sgt. Tyler Vargas-Andrews, who told lawmakers last year that he was thwarted in an attempt to stop the suicide bombing.
Harris, who was campaigning in Georgia Wednesday, did not bring up “incident” at Arlington National Cemetery. Harris-Walz communications director Michael Tyler told CNN on Wednesday that the “incident” at Arlington National Cemetery with former President Trump was “pretty sad,” but what “we’ve come to expect” from the former president.
-ABC News’ Soo Rin Kim, Cindy Smith and Hannah Demissie
Biden to travel to Wisconsin next week to tout economy
President Joe Biden will travel to the battleground state of Wisconsin on Sept. 5 to highlight his economic agenda, according to the White House.
Exact details of the trip, including the locations in the state, weren’t immediately revealed.
-ABC News’ Justin Gomez
Walz promises to fight for labor freedoms at International Association of Fire Fighters
Gov. Tim Walz addressed the International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF) convention on Wednesday in Boston, making the case that the Democratic ticket was the one that would fight for their freedoms, including labor protections.
“People tell me, look, I’m really not that into politics. My response to that is, too damn bad — politics is into you,” Walz said to what he acknowledged as a bipartisan audience.
Walz said that Harris “is proudly part of the most pro-labor administration in history,” and that when they “win this election, we’ll have your back like you’ve had ours.”
“We believe that you, not politicians, should be made free to make your own health care choices,” Walz concluded. “We believe that workers deserve to collectively bargain for fair wages and safe working conditions.”
-ABC News’ Isabella Murray
Harris-Walz campaign responds to superseding indictment
Quentin Fulks, the Harris-Walz campaign’s principal deputy campaign manager, reacted to the news of the superseding indictment against Donald Trump Tuesday afternoon on MSNBC and avoided remarking on “ongoing legal cases” but characterized Trump as a danger.
“They saw it with their own eyes, and so we’re going to continue to take the fight directly to Donald Trump on the issues that matter. But American voters aren’t stupid. They know who Donald Trump is, and they know what he will do if he gets more time in the White House,” Fulks told MSNBC.
-ABC News’ Isabella Murray, Gabriella Abdul-Hakim, Fritz Farrow and Will McDuffie
Harris-Walz campaign responds to superseding indictment
Quentin Fulks, the Harris-Walz campaign’s principal deputy campaign manager, reacted to the news of the superseding indictment against Donald Trump Tuesday afternoon on MSNBC and avoided remarking on “ongoing legal cases” but characterized Trump as a danger.
“They saw it with their own eyes, and so we’re going to continue to take the fight directly to Donald Trump on the issues that matter. But American voters aren’t stupid. They know who Donald Trump is, and they know what he will do if he gets more time in the White House,” Fulks told MSNBC.
JD Vance responds to new special counsel indictment
Sen. JD Vance, asked by ABC News on the tarmac in Nashville about the superseding indictment in former President Donald Trump’s federal election interference case, framed the special counsel’s actions as an effort to influence the election.
“I haven’t read the whole thing, but it looks like Jack Smith doing more of what he does, which is filing these absurd lawsuits in an effort to influence the election,” the GOP vice presidential candidate said.
The new indictment adjusts the charges to the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling.
Vance pushed back against the Harris-Walz campaign’s assertion that the Supreme Court ruling goes too far and grants the former president too much immunity, arguing that the president needs some immunity in order to do the job.
“If the president doesn’t have some level of immunity in how he conducts his office, in the same way that judges have to have immunity, police officers have to have immunity. There has to be some recognition that people can’t be sued for doing their job,” Vance said.
(WASHINGTON) — Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. claimed in a conversation with Roseanne Barr posted on X Sunday that he placed a dead “young bear” in Central Park 10 years ago.
In the video, which the campaign said was posted to get ahead of a New Yorker article, the candidate said he was driving in upstate New York when a woman in a van in front of him hit and killed the bear, he told Barr.
Kennedy told Barr he pulled over and put the bear in the back of his vehicle, planning to skin it and put the meat in his refrigerator.
However, after a day spent “hawking,” followed by a dinner that ran long back in New York City, Kennedy told Barr that he did not have time to put the bear in his house before catching a flight out of New York. Kennedy said he chose — with encouragement from others — to place the dead bear in the New York City park next to a bicycle he happened to have in his car to make it appear as if a bicyclist struck the bear. Kennedy said bicycling accidents with pedestrians were big news at the time.
The dead bear made news when a woman discovered it the next day, though Kennedy was never tied to the incident.
Kennedy said at the end of the video that he told the story to get ahead of an upcoming New Yorker profile of him, which he believes will include details of the incident.
“Looking forward to seeing how you spin this one [New Yorker],” he wrote on X to accompany the video.
The Kennedy campaign is not worried about any legal ramifications stemming from Kennedy’s bear incident, a campaign official told.
The official said the video was shot as an outtake when Kennedy recorded a conversation with Barr. The campaign saw it as a funny story that they decided to post Sunday when they became aware the New Yorker was planning to include the incident in an upcoming article, the campaign official said.
(WASHINGTON) — A photography-related “incident” occurred at Arlington National Cemetery Monday during a visit by former President Donald Trump, leading to a report being filed, the cemetery said in a statement to ABC News.
While the cemetery did not immediately provide specifics, NPR reported that a source had told the publication that two Trump campaign officials engaged in a verbal and physical altercation with a cemetery staff member during Trump’s visit, which came on the third anniversary of the deaths of 13 service members during the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.
The alleged altercation took place after the Trump campaign officials were asked not to take photos and videos in Section 60, a section of the cemetery where recent U.S. veterans are buried, NPR reported.
When contacted by ABC News on Tuesday night, a representative for the Arlington National Cemetery released a statement that confirmed an “incident” but didn’t provide specifics.
“Federal law prohibits political campaign or election-related activities within Army National Military Cemeteries, to include photographers, content creators or any other persons attending for purposes, or in direct support of a partisan political candidate’s campaign. Arlington National Cemetery reinforced and widely shared this law and its prohibitions with all participants. We can confirm there was an incident, and a report was filed,” the statement read.
On Tuesday, Trump’s campaign posted a video capturing moments from the former president’s visit to Arlington National Cemetery, including more images of his visit to Section 60 where the alleged altercation occurred, and appears to be an example of how the campaign violated the cemetery’s rules.
The TikTok video, which is overlayed by guitar instrumentals, shows a montage of Trump participating in the wreath-laying ceremony, taking photos with Gold Star families and visiting Section 60.
In the video, Trump can be heard making a political point throughout the video — blaming the Biden-Harris administration for the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan. The video is also captioned “Should have never happened,” again condemning his political opponent’s previous actions.
In the TikTok video, Trump and some of the family members are seen smiling and holding thumbs up as they posed for photos, with overlaid captions claiming Trump didn’t lose a single soldier in 18 months, but that a “disaster” ensued after the Biden-Harris administration took over.
Trump campaign’s communications director, Steven Cheung, posted on X what he said was proof of the team’s approval to have an official photographer and videographer outside the main press pool.
“Only former President Trump may have an official photographer and/or videographer outside of the main media pool,” a screengrab of what appears to be an access guideline posted by Cheung reads. However, it should be noted that campaign officials — not professionals — were also taking photos and videos of the day’s events.
Cheung also claimed on Tuesday night after the news broke that, “There was no physical altercation as described, and we are prepared to release footage if such defamatory claims are made” in a statement to ABC News.
Trump campaign staffers posted multiple pictures and videos of Trump visiting Arlington Cemetery, including from what appears to be Section 60, using the moment to criticize Vice President Kamala Harris’ absence. Trump was at the cemetery on the third anniversary of the attack at Abbey Gate during the withdrawal from Afghanistan to pay tribute to the 13 U.S. Service members killed in the incident.
In one video posted by Trump campaign’s senior adviser Chris LaCivita, Trump can be seen laying flowers on the grave of Staff Sgt. Ryan Knauss, who died in the attack. LaCivita wrote in the post that Trump was speaking on the phone with Knauss’ family, who couldn’t make it to the ceremony on Monday.
Multiple other Trump campaign staffers posted photos from there, and some of the images were then shared by the Trump campaign on their official X account.
Prior to the event, the cemetery had been explicit in its rule that no Trump activity could be filmed during his visit to Section 60.
Monday’s press pool note read: “The family visit to Section 60 following the wreath laying is private and at their explicit request, there will be NO coverage at that location. Your POOL will wait inside the press van during this visit. POOL will then be taken to an unknown location for an OTR stop to round out the morning.”
On Tuesday, following NPR’s report, Cheung said in a statement that “there was no physical altercation as described.” He also claimed someone “decided to physically block members of President Trump’s team.”
In a statement to ABC News, LaCivita, a combat-wounded Marine, stressed that Trump “was there on the invitation of the Abbey Gate Gold Star Families to honor their loved ones who gave the ultimate sacrifice for their country,” calling the individual who attempted to block Trump campaign officials “despicable.”