TikTok, ByteDance File Lawsuit Challenging the US TikTok Ban Bill

On Tuesday (May 7), TikTok and ByteDance (TikTok’s parent company) filed a lawsuit in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit against a newly introduced US law that calls for the ban of the social media app unless it cuts ties with its parent company within a year. This comes just a couple of weeks after TikTok CEO Shou Chew said “We’re not going anywhere.”

In the lawsuit, ByteDance claimed that it’s being unfairly targeted and is being labelled as a threat to US national security when there’s no proof. It also said that the ban is an attack on the First Amendment rights of 170 million US citizens, which essentially renders the ban unconstitutional.

The White House referred any questions about this lawsuit to the Justice Department, which hasn’t yet responded to a request for comment. However, Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, an Illinois Democrat, issued a statement on Tuesday saying:

“This is the only way to address the national security threat posed by ByteDance’s ownership of apps like TikTok. Instead of continuing its deceptive tactics, it’s time for ByteDance to start the divestment process.”

Why Do US Authorities Have a Problem with TikTok?

For years, US officials have seen TikTok as a threat to national security. And the situation has only gotten worse, owing to the deteriorating relationship between the US and China.

Interestingly, the two parties had signed a 90-page draft before the Committee on Foreign Investment, which has been monitoring TikTok’s actions since 2019, under which a set of rules were laid down for TikTok. Additionally, the US government was given the power to shut down TikTok if the mentioned rules were violated.

Under the same draft, TikTok was also required to set up a separate cluster of servers within US borders to store the data of US citizens, which it did.

However, it looks like all the steps taken by TikTok weren’t enough to appease US authorities. This is why a much more drastic step in the form of a new law banning TikTok was taken.

Read more: European Union launches a probe into TikTok Lite’s addictive reward program

What Is the New TikTok Law?

An additional 90-day extension can be added to the nine-month deadline if the President finds enough evidence that the company has made sufficient progress toward the sale.

Prior to this, the first TikTok ban bill was introduced in early March. It proposed eliminating TikTok unless it severed ties with ByteDance. This one, however, only gave the company six months to finalize the sale—an unrealistic deadline by all means.

Then a second bill, clubbed into a five-piece legislation, was introduced, which gave ByteDance more time. However, since the bill was paired with other much more important and pressing bills, including aid for Israel and Ukraine for their respective wars, it was passed almost instantaneously and with much less resistance.

This is what the US might have wanted all along. It cleverly increased the deadline—but in a way finalised the TikTok divestment/ban.

Will ByteDance Sell TikTok?

Speaking of ByteDance, it doesn’t want to sell TikTok. Even if it wanted to, China has made it very clear that it would oppose the sale.

So, even if ByteDance were to sell TikTok, it’ll have to do so without the algorithm, which would pretty much destroy the app. Consequently, would a buyer even be interested in buying TikTok without its revolutionary algorithm?

What’s Next for TikTok and ByteDance?

The first step would be to ask the court to temporarily block the law. Next, the company might pursue the case with a broader scope.

Unless TikTok manages to win this lawsuit, it will have no other option but to shut down its services in the US on January 19, 2025.

Whether the court will rule in favor of TikTok is a big question. On one hand, it has to protect the First Amendment rights of hundreds of millions of American citizens, and on the other hand, Congress has raised national security concerns regarding TikTok—all unproved, sure, but that doesn’t make them illegitimate.

It’s also worth noting that ByteDance can’t isolate TikTok US from the rest of TikTok because the new law requires the entire software code behind the app, which includes millions of lines, to be taken away from ByteDance so that there’s no “operational” link between them.