TikTok and its China-based parent company sued the Biden administration Tuesday over a recently signed bill that would force ByteDance to sell the app or potentially face a blanket ban in the U.S.
China-based ByteDance is suing%20(Petition).pdf?x-resource-account=public) the U.S. government on grounds that the Protecting Americans From Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act is unconstitutional because it would constitute a violation of free speech. President Joe Biden signed the bill that would force ByteDance to sell TikTok or be banned in the U.S. in April amid concerns that the social media app is a national security risk due to its connection to the Chinese Communist Party.
“Congress has taken the unprecedented step of expressly singling out and banning TikTok: a vibrant online forum for protected speech and expression used by 170 million Americans to create, share, and view videos over the Internet,” the lawsuit states. “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.”
TikTok has been under strict scrutiny in recent years due to concerns that the company could be giving access to Americans’ information to the Chinese government, as it has a China-based parent company.
“Banning TikTok is so obviously unconstitutional, in fact, that even the Act’s sponsors recognized that reality, and therefore have tried mightily to depict the law not as a ban at all, but merely a regulation of TikTok’s ownership,” the suit continues.
The Department of Justice and TikTok didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
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