A new American rule that would prohibit the well-known video-sharing app in the country unless it is sold to an authorized buyer is being challenged in court by TikTok and its Chinese parent firm on Tuesday.
They claim the law unfairly singles out the platform and constitutes an unprecedented attack on free speech.
ByteDance alleges in its lawsuit that the new law, which circumvents the First Amendment, unfairly characterizes its ownership of TikTok as a national security concern, even though there is no proof the company is a threat.
Furthermore, it claims that because the statute is so “obviously unconstitutional,” its proponents are misrepresenting it to control TikTok’s ownership.
ByteDance claims in the lawsuit filed in a Washington appeals court that “for the first time in history, Congress has enacted a law that subjects a single, named speech platform to a permanent, nationwide ban and bars every American from participating in a unique online community with more than 1 billion people worldwide.”
Laptops 1000The measure, which President Joe Biden signed as part of a bigger aid package, targets a specific social media business for a prospective ban for the first time in American history.
Proponents of free expression argue that this is to be expected from totalitarian regimes like those in China and Iran.
The complaint is the most recent development in what seems to be a drawn-out legal battle over TikTok’s legal status in the US, a battle that may eventually reach the Supreme Court. TikTok claims it will have to close its doors the next year if it loses.
ByteDance has nine months to sell the platform to a bidder approved by the US government, per the law. If a sale is underway, the business will have an additional three months to finalize the agreement.
According to ByteDance, selling TikTok is not in the cards. Nevertheless, the corporation would require Beijing’s approval before it could divest.
The lawsuit claims that the Chinese government “made clear” that ByteDance would not be permitted to employ the algorithm that is “key to the success of TikTok in the United States” and populates users’ feeds.
TikTok and ByteDance claim that the new rule forces them to close their doors by January 19 of next year since it is not technically, financially, or legally feasible for them to stay open in the United States.
They add that ByteDance cannot possibly separate its U.S. TikTok platform from the rest of TikTok, which has one billion users globally, the majority of whom are not from the United States.
According to the lawsuit, an island cut off from the outside world would be a TikTok exclusive to the United States.
Since the law demands that TikTok’s millions of lines of software code be taken away from ByteDance to prevent an “operational relationship” between the Chinese business and the new U.S. app, the suit also portrays divestiture as technologically impossible.
The corporations are requesting a declaratory judgment that it is unconstitutional, arguing that they should be protected by the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of expression.
On Tuesday, the Justice Department chose not to comment on the lawsuit. Furthermore, Karine Jean-Pierre, the press secretary for the White House, steered clear of discussing the president’s continued use of TikTok for political purposes in favor of the campaign.
Laptops 1000The new regulation was defended in a statement released on Tuesday by Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, a Democrat from Illinois and the ranking member of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party.
“TikTok and other ByteDance-owned apps represent a threat to national security, and this is the only way to address it. It’s time for ByteDance to begin the divestment process rather than carry on with its dishonest business practices,” he declared.
Gus Hurwitz, a senior fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s Carey Law School who is not involved in the lawsuit, predicted that ByteDance will first likely ask a judge to temporarily prohibit the federal law from going into force.
Furthermore, he argued, ByteDance would have to sell TikTok before the larger issue could be resolved, therefore the decision on whether to give such a preliminary injunction might determine the outcome of the case.
Hurwitz is unsure if a court will give such an injunction, primarily because doing so would mean weighing significant free expression concerns against the Biden administration’s allegations of national security threats. On these problems, he said, “the courts will be very deferential to Congress.”
The dispute over TikTok is part of a larger rivalry between the United States and China, particularly in fields like data security and cutting-edge technologies that are thought to be crucial to both nations’ economic might and security as a whole.
Law enforcement, administration, and lawmakers in the United States have voiced worries about Chinese authorities threatening to alter public opinion by manipulating the algorithm that populates users’ feeds or forcing ByteDance to turn over user data from American citizens.
Additionally, Rutgers University research has been cited by some, which asserts that TikTok material is either underrepresented or exaggerated because it serves the purposes of the Chinese government. The corporation disputes this assertion.
The law’s opponents contend that there are other, easier methods for Chinese officials or other evil actors to obtain information on Americans, such as through commercial data brokers who rent or sell personal data.
They claim the United States government has not made available any proof that TikTok has given Chinese officials access to user data from American users or altered its algorithm to favor China.
App data collection “has real consequences for all of our privacy,” according to National Security Project deputy director Patrick Toomey of the ACLU. However, outlawing a single social networking site that is utilized by millions of people worldwide is not the answer.
Congress must instead enact legislation that safeguards our privacy in the first place.
The executive director of Columbia University’s Knight First Amendment Institute, Jameel Jaffer, anticipates that TikTok’s lawsuit will be successful.
According to Jaffer’s remark, “The government cannot restrict Americans’ access to ideas, information, or media from abroad unless there is a very good reason for it, and there isn’t a very good reason here.”
While TikTok has won previous First Amendment challenges, it’s unclear if the new complaint will be resolved in the same way.
The nonpartisan character of this federal law, according to law professor and associate director of Cornell University’s First Amendment Clinic Gautam Hans, “may make judges more likely to defer to a Congressional determination that the company poses a national security risk.”
“It’s difficult to determine why the courts should validate such an unprecedented law, though, without a public discussion of the specific risks involved.”
