Video-sharing app TikTok, and its Chinese parent company ByteDance, have filed a legal challenge in the US against a legislative move to force its sale, lest it face a country-wide ban.
The petition said the demand violated constitutional guarantees to free speech detailed in the First Amendment, after President Joe Biden signed a bill giving the tech firm nine months to find a non-Chinese buyer.
TikTok is estimated to have around a billion users worldwide and roughly 170 million users in the US. The firms argued on Sunday that “Congress has made a law curtailing massive amounts of protected speech” and that the demand for divestiture was not feasible.
See also: Explainer: Why is TikTok blocked in Hong Kong?
“If Congress can do this, it can circumvent the First Amendment by invoking national security and ordering the publisher of any individual newspaper or website to sell to avoid being shut down. And for TikTok, any such divestiture would disconnect Americans from the rest of the global community on a platform devoted to shared content — an outcome fundamentally at odds with the Constitution’s commitment to both free speech and individual liberty,” the petition said.
Bytedance and TikTok cited a 1919 Supreme Court ruling which stated that only a “present danger of immediate evil” could be used to limit free speech: “Congress must abide by the dictates of the Constitution even when it claims to be protecting against national security risks…” it said, saying lawmakers failed to do so.
Biden can extend the nine-month deadline once, by 90 days.
TikTok data concerns
TikTok’s Chinese owner ByteDance has repeatedly denied sharing any user information with Beijing. However, China’s national security law obliges Chinese firms to cooperate with the authorities when data is requested.
Beijing previously said that it “will take all necessary measures to resolutely safeguard its legitimate rights and interests,” in light of the US legislative moves.
ByteDance is based in Beijing, but has offices in Europe and the US and is officially registered in the Cayman Islands.
Among the platforms blocked in China are TikTok, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google, Gmail, Spotify, Wikipedia, LinkedIn, WhatsApp, YouTube and most Western news websites.
TikTok withdrew from Hong Kong in 2020, but the the mainland Chinese version of the app, Douyin, remains available.
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