Weeks after President Joe Biden signed a new law requiring TikTok’s parent company ByteDance to sell TikTok to an approved buyer or be banned from U.S. app stores, ByteDance has initiated a lawsuit challenging the new law. ByteDance argues that the law targets TikTok and infringes on the constitutional right to free speech.
Lawsuit Details
ByteDance argues in its lawsuit that the new law signed by President Biden and passed with overwhelming support in Congress unfairly claims that TikTok represents a national security threat without presenting any evidence to support that claim.
ByteDance Claims Lawmakers Want Control of Ownership
Furthermore, ByteDance claims that the law is just a cover for a power grab, whereby U.S. leaders’ main ambition is to determine TikTok’s ownership.
Unprecedented Legal Action
The legal filing states that the law unfairly targets a singular entity and is effectively alienating the technology company from self-selecting online users of over 1 billion worldwide.
Unprecedented Threat
While this may be the first time Congress has targeted one social media entity for legal action and scrutiny, behemoth social media enterprises have not been around for very long, and TikTok poses a singularly unique threat due to its ownership being in the Chinese Communist Party.
Legislation Background
The House and Senate included the TikTok bill as part of a larger package including foreign aid for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. Critics of the bill forcing the sale of TikTok compare this action of burying the bill among other unrelated issues to actions of a repressive government.
Forced Divestment
In its legal filing, ByteDance states that the deadlines given in the legislation are unfeasible. The bill requires the company to sell TikTok or shut down operations in the U.S. by January 19, 2025.
Technical and Operational Challenges
The company also states a technological impossibility of divesting TikTok, as the company would have to separate millions of lines of code to make it operationally independent from ByteDance.
Legal Strategy
It is likely that ByteDance will seek a court injunction to block the law during the course of the pending lawsuit. If the court does not grant the request, ByteDance will essentially have to seek to sell the company while at the same time fighting the law through the courts.
International Relations and Security Concerns
Given the near unanimous support in Congress for the TikTok ban bill, it is clear that lawmakers see a national security threat that many who are not subject to national security briefings do not see. Lawmakers in the foreign relations, intelligence, and national security space are also greatly concerned about the tensions between the U.S. and China., especially as it concerns advanced technologies, espionage, and date security.
Opposition to the Ban
Though most lawmakers supported the forced sale of TikTok, others did not. Those opposed to the ban cite a lack of evidence from the U.S. that the Chinese Communist Party has gained access to U.S. user data or manipulated content to favor China.
Civil Liberties Argument
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) opposed the ban, arguing that the law restricts Americans from accessing information and ideas they seek from TikTok, without warrant. Other civil liberties groups have echoed this concern.
Judicial Considerations
While citing First Amendment rights is a popular and often successful lawsuit argument, the TikTok lawsuit may face an uphill battle. The legislation passed and was signed with significant bipartisan support, which lends credibility to the national security concerns presented via the app. Judges may give credence to the national security threat by virtue of the strong support for the ban by the lawmakers who have the most access to information on existential threats.
Public Discussion and Transparency
Although lawmakers have spoken for years about the potential threats of apps and technologies owned by the Chinese Communist Party saturating American society, a scholarly legal discussion on the threats of TikTok has not had time to emerge and be vetted thoroughly outside of Congressional briefing rooms.
Legal scholars have expressed concerns about the fact that there was no widespread, accessible, extensive discussion prior to the legislature making significant decisions to ban the app if ByteDance would not divest its interest.
Conclusion
TikTok and ByteDance were expected to challenge the new U.S. law forcing sale of TikTok or otherwise banning the app from U.S. app stores. Now the lawsuit is here and the Chinese company will have its day in court.
