TikTok Sues U.S. Over Potential Ban

Topline

TikTok filed a lawsuit Tuesday challenging a new bill requiring ByteDance—the company’s China-based owner—to sell the app or face a ban in the U.S., claiming the law likely violates the First Amendment while arguing a nine-month timeline for a possible sale is “simply not possible.”

The social media company said a timeline requiring China-based owner ByteDance to sell the app was … [+] “simply not possible.”

AFP via Getty Images

Key Facts

TikTok said the law, signed by President Joe Biden last month, will force a shutdown of TikTok by Jan. 19, 2025, while “silencing the 170 million Americans who use the platform to communicate in ways that cannot be replicated elsewhere,” according to the lawsuit.

The company argued “there is no choice” except for TikTok to be banned in the U.S., suggesting a 270-day timeline for ByteDance’s required divestment is “simply not possible: not commercially, not technologically, not legally.”

If ByteDance could feasibly divest from TikTok, the law still presents an “extraordinary and unconstitutional assertion of power” and denies the company equal protection under U.S. law, TikTok alleges.

TikTok also argued it would be “impossible” to move the app’s code to a new owner, adding it would take years for new engineers to gain “sufficient familiarity” with its source code to perform necessary maintenance and other development activities.

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Key Background

TikTok signaled a legal challenge to legislation last month, after the potential ban was passed as part of a $95 billion foreign aid bill. The bill requires ByteDance to sell TikTok within 270 days, though Biden could extend the deadline by 90 days if he sees “significant progress” toward a sale. An earlier version of the bill would have given ByteDance a 180-day timeline, though efforts to pass the legislation stalled in the Senate. Lawmakers have expressed national security concerns about TikTok in recent years over the app’s ties to the Chinese government. Congress banned the app on federal devices in 2022, amid a wave of state governments issuing similar bans over national security and privacy concerns.

Tangent

TikTok filed a similar lawsuit last year, arguing Montana’s ban on the app violated the First Amendment and suppressed free speech. Gov. Greg Gianforte approved the first-of-its-kind bill banning the app, saying he did so to “protect Montanans’ personal and private data from the Chinese Communist Party.” A federal judge blocked Montana’s ban in November, ruling the ban attempted to target China’s “ostensible role in TikTok” more than it intended to protect users. The company also won a legal challenge against former President Donald Trump’s effort to force the sale of TikTok via an executive order in 2020. A judge said the order was likely unconstitutional, adding the ban would shut down a “platform for expressive activity used by about 700 million individuals globally.”