TikTok sues over US law on sale of messenger

TikTok and its Chinese parent company ByteDance have filed a lawsuit in a US federal court to block a law that would potentially ban TikTok in the United States. Reuters writes about it, UNN reports .

Details

The company argues that the bill "does not clearly describe TikTok as a threat to national security". The lawsuit claims that the law violates the US Constitution, in particular the First Amendment to protect freedom of speech. Therefore, the companies are asked to prohibit US Attorney General Merrick Garland from enforcing the law.

Congress has taken the unprecedented step of clearly singling out and banning TikTok: a live online forum used by 170 million Americans to create, share and watch videos online. For the first time in history, Congress has passed a law that places a permanent nationwide ban on the only broadcast platform with a name and prohibits every American from participating in a unique online community of more than 1 billion people worldwide

The law, signed by U.S. President Joe Biden on April 24, gives ByteDance until January 19 to sell TikTok to a Western company, otherwise it will be banned throughout the United States.

The lawsuit states: "the sale is simply not possible: not commercially, not technologically, not legally. There is no doubt that the law will force a ban by January 19, 2025, silencing 170 million Americans who use the platform to communicate in ways that cannot be replicated elsewhere.

American lawmakers are concerned that China could access or spy on Americans using TikTok, so the law was passed by an overwhelming majority in Congress. Meanwhile, the social network denies that it has ever transferred user data from the United States.

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