The US government recently passed a bill into law that gives TikTok a 9-month deadline before it gets banned in the country unless it hands over control to an American company. TikTok has now retaliated by filing a lawsuit against the Biden administration’s divestiture bill to contest the ban.
The Chinese social media giant’s lawsuit labels the new US legislation as unfair and unconstitutional. Beckman, TikTok’s director of U.S. public policy, strongly criticized the bill and warned of severe consequences for its extensive user base of 170 million Americans and the 7 million small businesses that depend on the platform. In a series of internal communications, Beckman vowed to launch a strong defense aimed at protecting free speech and economic opportunities.
TikTok says in its lawsuit that a sale from ByteDance, its parent company, is not possible and that it would force TikTok to shut down by January 25, 2025. This is because TikTok claims that a sale would require the company to transfer “millions of lines” of code to a new owner, and due to limitations from the Chinese government, it cannot be sold with its algorithm.
The lawsuit reads:
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.
Last month, President Joe Biden enacted a law requiring ByteDance to sell off TikTok or shut it down within the U.S. within nine months, citing national security issues. Despite this, the lawsuit claims that the government has not yet supplied any proof that the Chinese government has misused TikTok.
The lawsuit adds:
Even the statements by individual Members of Congress and a congressional committee report merely indicate concern about the hypothetical possibility that TikTok could be misused in the future, without citing specific evidence — even though the platform has operated prominently in the United States since it was first launched in 2017.
