TikTok is taking the US to court to stop its ban
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- TikTok is suing the US government over its new law that forces a sale or ban of the app.
- The company argued that the law violates the First-Amendment rights of its users.
- Experts said a legal fight weighing free speech against national-security interests is a coin toss.
TikTok promised to fight its ban in the US — and now the social media giant has made it official.
TikTok and its parent company ByteDance sued the federal government on Tuesday to halt a nationwide ban of the app, according to reports in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and Reuters.
The bill, which was bundled with foreign aid and signed into law by President Joe Biden on April 24, gives ByteDance, nine months to a year to sell or spin off TikTok's US assets or face a ban from app stores.
The legislation specifically called out TikTok and ByteDance but could ultimately impact other US-based apps with ties to China, Russia, or other countries that the US considers foreign adversaries.
State and federal politicians have spent years trying to assert greater control over TikTok's US operations.
Politicians fear its owner — which is headquartered in Beijing — could be compelled to share US user data with the Chinese Communist Party or run influence operations on its behalf.
TikTok has denied both of these claims, and the US government has yet to present evidence that either action has occurred.
TikTok's legal arguments rest on the First Amendment of the Constitution, which states that Congress can't pass a law that inhibits free speech. TikTok argues in the suit that the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act deprives the app's 170 million American users of their First Amendment rights.
TikTok also said that selling the app would "simply not possible," according to the reports.
Legal scholars told Business Insider that well-articulated First Amendment arguments tend to prevail in court, but Congress' national-security concerns could ultimately win out.
"The First Amendment is the trump card that basically allows you to prevail if you can plausibly make a First-Amendment argument," G.S. Hans, an associate clinical professor of law at Cornell Law School and associate director of its First-Amendment clinic, told BI. "National security also is a trump card, and the government often wins when it claims that. The question for me is, which trump card does the court think is more valuable?"
The US is not the first country to target TikTok for having a China-based owner. India banned the app in 2020 amid its geopolitical dispute with China.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.