WASHINGTON — On Tuesday TikTok sued to block a U.S. law that could force a nationwide ban of the popular app, following the legal threat the company issued after President Joe Biden signed the legislation last month.
This sets up a historic legal battle that will determine whether U.S. security concerns about TikTok’s links to China can trump the First Amendment rights of TikTok’s 170 million U.S. users.
What happens if TikTok loses?
TikTok could be banned from U.S. app stores unless its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, sells the app to a non-Chinese entity by mid-January 2025.
What a TikTok ban in the US would mean for you:
In a petition filed on Tuesday at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, TikTok and Bytedance claim that the law is unconstitutional because it stifles Americans' freedom of speech and prevents them from accessing lawful information.
The petition claims the U.S. government "has taken the unprecedented step of expressly singling out and banning" the short-form video app in an unconstitutional exercise of congressional power.
The petition said, "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."
What are your thoughts - Should TikTok be banned?
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