TikTok is suing the US government after Joe Biden signed a bill that would force its Chinese owners to sell the popular app or face a ban in the US.
The platform’s parent company, ByteDance, accused the Biden administration of violating First Amendment rights by allegedly attempting to “silence the 170 million Americans” who use the social media app.
The bill was overwhelmingly passed by Congress and signed by Biden on April 24, giving ByteDance until January 19 to sell TikTok or face a ban. The proposal was prompted by concerns that China could use the app to access American users’ data.
ByteDance has now filed a lawsuit with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in an attempt to block the bill, arguing that divestment “simply is not possible: neither commercially, nor technologically, nor legally.”
“There is no doubt: the law will force TikTok to shut down by January 19, 2025, silencing the 170 million Americans who use the platform to communicate in ways that cannot be replicated elsewhere,” the lawsuit says.
TikTok is suing the US government after Joe Biden signed a bill that would force its Chinese owners to sell the popular app or face a ban in the US. (Pictured: TikTok CEO , Shou Zi Chew, with his wife Vivian Kao at the Met Gala on Monday night)
The bill was overwhelmingly passed by Congress and signed by Biden on April 24, giving ByteDance until January 19 to sell TikTok or face a ban.
According to ByteDance’s lawsuit, the Chinese government “has made clear that it would not allow a sale of the recommendation engine that is key to TikTok’s success in the United States.”
TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew was seen with his wife Vivian Kao enjoying the Met Gala in New York City on Monday night. He was honorary chair of the evening along with Loewe creative director Jonathan Anderson.
The new law threatening his company prohibits app stores from carrying TikTok and prohibits internet hosting services from supporting the app unless ByteDance gets rid of it.
According to the lawsuit, the Chinese government “has made clear that it would not allow a sale of the recommendation engine that is key to TikTok’s success in the United States.”
He also said TikTok has spent $2 billion to implement measures to protect American users’ data and made additional commitments in a 90-page draft National Security Agreement developed through negotiations with the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States. United States (CFIUS).
That agreement included TikTok agreeing to a “shutdown option” that would give the U.S. government the authority to suspend TikTok in the United States if it violated certain obligations,” according to the lawsuit.
In August 2022, according to the lawsuit, CFIUS stopped engaging in meaningful discussions about the deal and in March 2023 CFIUS “insisted that ByteDance would be required to sell TikTok’s U.S. business.”
CFIUS is an interagency committee, chaired by the U.S. Department of the Treasury, that reviews foreign investments in U.S. companies and real estate that involve national security concerns.
TikTok is suing the US government after Joe Biden signed a bill that will force its owner to sell the popular video-sharing platform used by 170 million Americans. (Pictured: TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew at the Met Gala on Monday night)
TikTok sues US government after Joe Biden signs bill that will force its owner to sell popular video-sharing platform used by 170 million Americans
Biden could extend the Jan. 19 deadline by three months if he determines ByteDance is making progress.
In 2020, courts blocked then-President Donald Trump from attempting to ban Chinese-owned TikTok and WeChat, a unit of Tencent, in the United States.
Trump, the Republican candidate challenging Democratic President Joe Biden in the Nov. 5 U.S. election, has since changed course, saying he does not support a ban but that security concerns need to be addressed.
Many experts have questioned whether any potential buyer has the financial resources to buy TikTok and whether government agencies in China and the United States would approve a sale.
Moving TikTok’s source code to the United States “would take years for an entirely new set of engineers to gain sufficient familiarity,” according to the lawsuit.
The four-year battle over TikTok is an important front in the ongoing conflict over the Internet and technology between the United States and China.
In April, Apple said China had ordered it to remove WhatsApp and Meta Platforms Threads from its App Store in China over Chinese national security concerns.