Fighting Back: TikTok Is Suing The U.S. Government

In an attempt to block the app ban, TikTok is officially filing a lawsuit against the U.S. government. Recently, the U.S. government passed a bill that would ban the app from the country if it is not sold to a non-Chinese buyer.

Parent company ByteDance argues that the ban violates users’ First Amendment rights. The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for Washington, D.C., argues that the bill, the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, violates constitutional protections of free speech. The suit calls the law an “unprecedented violation” of the First Amendment.

“For the first time in history, Congress has enacted a law that subjects a single, named speech platform to a permanent, nationwide ban,” TikTok wrote in the lawsuit, adding, “and bars every American from participating in a unique online community with more than 1 billion people worldwide.”

The company argues that invoking national security concerns is not a sufficient reason for restricting free speech and that the burden is on the federal government to prove that this restriction is warranted. It has not met that burden, the lawsuit stated.

In April, President Joe Biden signed a law giving ByteDance nine months to divest TikTok or cease operations in the US, citing national security concerns. However, the complaint alleges that the government has yet to provide evidence of the Chinese government misusing TikTok.

The Verge reported that when the US attempted to ban TikTok ban during the Trump administration, the company considered spinning off its US operations in partnerships with American companies such as Walmart, Microsoft, and Oracle. But those deals never came to be.

It has also tried to win favor with the government by housing US user data in Oracle’s servers, but a recent report from Fortune suggests this move was “largely cosmetic.”

TikTok is used by millions of people. The Associated Press reports that it most likely won’t disappear from your phone even if an eventual ban does take effect. They did mention that it would disappear from Apple and Google’s app stores. This means that users won’t be able to download it. This would also mean that TikTok wouldn’t be able to send updates, security patches, and bug fixes, and over time the app would likely become unusable.

However some people speculate that if that does become the case users could try to mask their location. They can potentially do this by using a VPN, or virtual private network, using alternative app stores, or even installing a foreign SIM card into their phone. But who would want to go through all of that trouble for an app?

Only time will tell how this will all end.