TikTok Fights Back: Sues US Government Over App Ban Unless Sold to American Entity

 



On Tuesday, May 7, TikTok took legal action to challenge a new US law that threatens to impose a nationwide ban on the popular social media app. This move follows the legal warnings issued by TikTok after the legislation was signed into law by US President Joe Biden last month.

The lawsuit initiates a significant legal confrontation, one that will weigh the US government's security concerns regarding TikTok's ties to China against the First Amendment rights of its 170 million American users. If TikTok fails to win the case, it faces the prospect of being removed from US app stores unless its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, sells the app to a non-Chinese entity by mid-January 2025.

In its petition filed at the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, TikTok and ByteDance argue that the new law is unconstitutional as it restricts Americans' freedom of speech and impedes their access to lawful information. The petition contends that the US government's action is unprecedented, singling out a specific platform for a permanent nationwide ban, thus depriving every American of the opportunity to engage with a unique online community of over 1 billion users worldwide.

This legal challenge comes after years of accusations from US authorities that TikTok's Chinese affiliations pose a threat to the personal data of American users. TikTok vehemently denies ever granting access to US user data to Chinese government officials and asserts that it has implemented measures to safeguard this information by storing it on servers owned by US tech giant Oracle.

TikTok and ByteDance dismiss the national security concerns underlying the legislation as speculative and lacking in substantive evidence. They argue in the petition that the swift passage of the bill reflects Congress's reliance on speculation rather than concrete evidence, which runs counter to the requirements of the First Amendment.

Despite classified briefings provided to US lawmakers by national security officials, the US government has yet to publicly present any concrete evidence demonstrating Chinese government access to TikTok data.

Comments

Dennis Ebere said…
Great win for tech giant,
May 8, 2024 at 12:59 AM
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