TikTok has vowed to wage a legal war after President Biden signed into law a bipartisan bill that forces its Beijing-based parent company to sell the popular video-sharing app or face a US ban.
“Rest assured — we aren’t going anywhere,” Tiktok CEO Shou Zi Chew said in a video posted moments after Biden signed the bill that gives ByteDance 270 days to divest TikTok’s US assets.
“The facts and the Constitution are on our side and we expect to prevail.”
Biden’s signing sets a Jan. 19 deadline for a sale — one day before his term expires — but he could extend the deadline by three months if he determines ByteDance is making progress on a deal.
Chew, however, promised the app’s 170 million US users that TikTok would continue to operate as the company challenges the restrictions.
“This unconstitutional law is a TikTok ban, and we will challenge it in court,” a TikTok spokesperson told The Post.
“This ban would devastate 7 million businesses and silence 170 million Americans.”
Driven by widespread worries among US lawmakers that China could access Americans’ data or surveil them with the app, the bill was overwhelmingly passed late on Tuesday by the Senate. The House approved it on Saturday.
The four-year battle over TikTok is a significant front in a war over the internet and technology between Washington and Beijing. Last week, Apple said China had ordered it to remove Meta-owned WhatsApp and Threads from its App Store in China over Chinese national security concerns.
TikTok, based in Singapore, has denied the Chinese government has any control over its app.
Response to TikTok Ban Bill
China’s government officials remained mum Wednesday, referring reporters to a statement last month that called on the US to stop the unreasonable suppression of foreign enterprises.
TikTok said it has “invested billions of dollars to keep US data safe and our platform free from outside influence and manipulation.”
The companysaid it will challenge the law on First Amendment grounds andTikTokusers are alsoexpected to again take legal action.
A judge in Montana in November blocked a state ban onTikTok, citing free-speech grounds.
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The American Civil Liberties Union said banning or requiring divestiture of TikTok would “set an alarming global precedent for excessive government control over social media platforms.”
The American Civil Liberties Union said banning or requiring divestiture of TikTok would “set an alarming global precedent for excessive government control over social media platforms.”
However, the new legislation is likely to give the Biden administration a stronger legal footing to ban TikTok if ByteDance fails to divest the app, experts say.
If ByteDance failed to divest TikTok, app stores operated by Apple, Google and others could not legally offer TikTok or provide Web hosting services to ByteDance-controlled applications or TikTok’s website.
The bill also gives the White House new tools to ban or force the sale of other foreign-owned apps it deems to be security threats.
Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden said he was concerned the bill “provides broad authority that could be abused by a future administration to violate Americans First Amendment rights.”
The Biden administration will have to walk a legal tight rope, according to experts.
“Courts will likely agree that the law is an attempt to address a compelling government interest,” said Justin Hurwitz, a senior fellow and academic director at the Center for Technology, Innovation, and Competition at the University of Pennsylvania’s Carey Law School.
“The question will be whether it does so effectively, and with minimal effects on other speech.”
Civil libertarians appear to agree with Chew.
Banning TikTok, directly or indirectly, violates the First Amendment rights of over 170 million people in America,” Patrick Toomey, deputy director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Security Project, said in a statement.
“The Constitution protects Americans’ ability to access information from around the world and to express themselves online, and the government has put forward no evidence that would overcome the extraordinarily high bar required to ban a social media app like TikTok.”
Toomey said that the ACLU is “considering our role in any potential litigation challenging a federal ban.”
Others, however, said that TikTok poses a threat particularly due to its “potential exploitation of its vast user base” as well as the fear that “TikTok could be leveraged as a tool for misinformation campaigns and data collection by foreign actors,” according to Lisa Plaggemier, executive director of the National Cybersecurity Alliance.
Plaggemier pointed to “China’s track record of aggressive cyber activities” which “raises the specter of sophisticated cyber threats targeting American users, including surveillance, data breaches, and manipulation of online discourse.”
Chew said the ban was a disappointing moment, but it does not need to be a defining one.
Its actually ironic because the freedom of expression on TikTok reflects the same American values that make the United States a beacon of freedom, he continued.
TikTok gives everyday Americans a powerful way to be seen and heard.
With Post wires