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TikTok Sues U.S. Government Over ‘Unconstitutional’ Ban

Photo from Alexander Shatov via Unsplash

TikTok Sues U.S. Government Over ‘Unconstitutional’ Ban

By Movieguide® Contributor

TikTok is suing the United States government in hopes of overturning a new law that would require its parent company, ByteDance, to sell the platform or be banned in the U.S.

Movieguide® previously reported on the ban:

On Wednesday, President Joe Biden signed a $95 billion national security package that included a plan to ban TikTok in the United States.

However, the ban wouldn’t go into effect until after the 2024 Presidential election in November.

“TikTok, which boasts 170 million American users, will remain a force throughout the campaign, providing a platform for candidates to reach predominantly younger voters. An earlier version of the bill could have banned the popular video-sharing app prior to the election, but recent changes mean lawmakers and Biden may not face such an immediate voter backlash,” NBC News reported.

Biden signed the Protecting Americans’ Data From Foreign Adversaries Act of 2024 on April 24, and TikTok and ByteDance filed their lawsuit against the U.S. on May 7.

Per CBS News, “The petition filed in federal court in Washington, D.C., alleges that the measure signed into law by President Biden last month is unconstitutional in part because it violates the First Amendment rights of its users in the U.S. by effectively shutting down their access to the popular forum. Filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, the petition calls for the court to block Attorney General Merrick Garland from enforcing the measure.”

“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 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.”

The law requires ByteDance to “sell its stake in TikTok within nine months to a party or parties not based in a country the U.S. designates a ‘foreign adversary’—and if it doesn’t, the distribution of TikTok would be outlawed,” Variety reported.

ByteDance hopes to avoid a ban through the lawsuit.

“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 lawsuit states.


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