- President Biden signed bill into law last month that said TikTok must be sold by its Chinese owner or be banned in the US
- TikTok lawsuit says US law was intrusion on free speech
- TikTok says divesting the business in timescale given is not possible
Social media platform TikTok has filed a lawsuit that challenges a recently passed US law that forces its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to sell the app in the US or face being banned in the country.
In a move that was largely expected, TikTok has filed a lawsuit with the DC Circuit Court of Appeals to try and stop the law.
In its filing – posted in full on TikTok’s website – it says the law, Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, is unconstitutional. The company added that the Act’s sponsors recognise this “and therefore have tried mightily to depict the law not as a ban at all, but merely a regulation of TikTok’s ownership.”
The Act was passed into law last month by President Joe Biden, after months of wrangling in Congress. The concerns centre on a claim that TikTok’s Chinese ownership presents a risk that US users’ data could be passed onto the Chinese government or be used against the US as propaganda. In China, businesses are required to pass data onto the Communist government. However, TikTok has always maintained it is independent of Chinese government interference.
TikTok also says the 270 days given for the “qualified divestiture” to happen to ensure the platform can continue operating in the US is “simply not possible: not commercially, not technologically, not legally. And certainly not on the 270-day timeline required by the Act.
“There is no question: the Act will force a shutdown of TikTok by January 19, 2025, silencing the 170 Americans who use the platform to communicate in ways that cannot be replicated elsewhere.”
The US government has yet to respond to TikTok’s lawsuit.
