TikTok sues US government over law that could ban social media platform

TikTok and its Chinese parent company filed a lawsuit Tuesday against a new U.S. law that would ban the popular video-sharing app in the United States unless it is sold to an approved buyer, saying it unfairly singles out the platform and constitutes an unprecedented attack on freedom of expression. .

In its lawsuit, ByteDance claims the new law vaguely portrays its ownership of TikTok as a national security threat in order to circumvent the First Amendment, despite no evidence that the company poses a threat. He also claims the law is so blatantly unconstitutional that its sponsors instead present it as a way to regulate ownership of TikToks.

For the first time in history, Congress has passed legislation that subjects a single, named speech platform to a permanent nationwide ban and prohibits every American from participating in a single online community counting more than billion people worldwide, ByteDance claims in the lawsuit filed in a Washington appeals court.

The law, which President Joe Biden signed as part of a broader foreign aid package, marks the first time the United States has targeted a social media company for a potential ban, which, according to free speech advocates, is what one would expect from repressive regimes such as those in Iran and China.

The lawsuit is the latest twist in what is expected to be a protracted legal battle over the future of TikTok in the United States that could end up in the Supreme Court. If TikTok loses, it would be forced to close its doors next year.

The law requires ByteDance to sell the platform to a US-approved buyer within nine months. If a sale is already in progress, the company would have an additional three months to complete the transaction. ByteDance has said it has no plans to sell TikTok. But even if it wanted to divest, the company would need Beijing's blessing. According to the lawsuit, the Chinese government made it clear that it would not allow ByteDance to include the algorithm that powers users' feeds and has been key to TikTok's success in the United States.

TikTok and ByteDance say the new law leaves them no choice but to close their doors by January 19, because it would not be commercially, technologically or legally possible to continue operating in the United States. They also say it would be impossible for ByteDance to spin off its U.S. TikTok platform as a separate entity from the rest of TikTok, which has 1 billion users worldwide, most of them outside the United States. A U.S.-only TikTok would function as an island detached from the rest of the world, the lawsuit claims.

The lawsuit also describes the divestment as a technological impossibility, since the law requires that all of TikTok's millions of lines of software code be ripped from ByteDance so that there is no operational relationship between the Chinese company and the new American application.

The companies argue they should be protected by the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech and are seeking a declaratory judgment declaring this unconstitutional.

The Justice Department declined to comment on the lawsuit Tuesday. And White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre refused to answer questions about why the president continues to use TikTok for his political activities, deferring to the campaign.

Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, an Illinois Democrat who is the ranking member of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, issued a statement Tuesday defending the new law.

This is the only way to address the national security threat posed by ByteDance's ownership of apps like TikTok. Instead of continuing its deceptive tactics, it is time for ByteDance to start the divestment process, he said.

ByteDance will likely first ask a court to temporarily block the federal law from taking effect, said Gus Hurwitz, a senior fellow at the University of Pennsylvania Carey School of Law, who is not involved in the case. And the decision on whether to grant such a preliminary injunction could decide the case, because in its absence, ByteDance would have to sell TikTok before the broader case could be decided, he said.

Hurwitz isn't sure whether a court will grant such an injunction, largely because it requires weighing important free speech issues against the Biden administration's allegations of a security breach. national. I think the courts will be very deferential to Congress on these issues, he said.

The fight over TikTok comes amid a broader rivalry between the United States and China, particularly in areas such as advanced technology and data security, seen as critical to economic success and security nationality of each country.

US lawmakers from both parties, as well as administration and law enforcement officials, have expressed concerns that Chinese authorities could force ByteDance to hand over US user data or influence public opinion by manipulating the algorithm that powers user feeds. Some also pointed to a Rutgers University study that argues that TikTok content was amplified or underrepresented based on how it aligned with the interests of the Chinese government, a claim disputed by the company.

Opponents of the law argue that Chinese authorities or any nefarious parties could easily obtain information about Americans through other means, including through commercial data brokers who rent or sell personal information. They say the U.S. government has not provided public evidence that TikTok shared U.S. users' information with Chinese authorities or changed its algorithm to benefit China.

Data collection by apps has real consequences for our privacy, said Patrick Toomey, deputy director of the ACLU's National Security Project. But banning a social media platform used by millions of people around the world is not the solution. Instead, we need Congress to pass laws that protect our privacy in the first place.

Jameel Jaffer, executive director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, expects TikTok's lawsuit to be successful.

The First Amendment means the government cannot restrict Americans' access to ideas, information or media from abroad without a very good reason and no such reason exists here, Jaffer said in a statement .

Although TikTok has prevailed in previous challenges to the First Amendment, it is unclear whether the current lawsuit will be as straightforward.

The bipartisan nature of this federal law could prompt judges to defer to a Congressional determination that the company poses a national security risk, said Gautam Hans, a law professor and associate director of the First Amendment Clinic at Cornell University. However, without public debate about the exact nature of the risks, it is difficult to determine why the courts should validate such an unprecedented law.

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Associated Press writers David Hamilton and Seung Min Kim contributed to this report.

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