TikTok Sues U.S. Government Over Bill Requiring Sale

[MacRumors]

TikTok parent company ByteDance today filed a lawsuit against the U.S. government in an effort to put a stop to the bill requiring TikTok to be sold off to a non-Chinese company in a matter of months, or face a U.S. ban.

The Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act that passed in April requires ByteDance to divest its TikTok ownership within nine months, with the possibility of a three-month extension if a deal is in progress. If TikTok is not sold off, the bill will prevent app stores and companies in the U.S. from providing the TikTok app to users. As of now, TikTok will be forced to shut down on January 19, 2025.

ByteDance calls the act "obviously unconstitutional," and says that there is no path for TikTok to continue operating in the United States. The 270-day timeline is "not possible," and even if it were, the company claims that the act is still an "extraordinary and unconstitutional assertion of power."

If upheld, it would allow the government to decide that a company may no longer own and publish the innovative and unique speech platform it created. 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 lawsuit argues that the act violates the First Amendment, and it claims that "speculative and analytically flawed" concern over security and content manipulation is an insufficient reason for limiting the free speech of TikTok's 170 million U.S. users.

ByteDance says that a U.S. TikTok platform would not be commercially viable because it would limit the pool of content, undermining "the value and viability of the U.S. TikTok business." ByteDance also claims that it would be technologically impossible to give the TikTok source code to a new owner because it would take years for new engineers to become familiar enough with the code to perform routine maintenance, plus the code would need to be rearchitected not to use ByteDance's software tools, which cannot be done in 270 days.

The Chinese government has said that it will "firmly oppose" any effort to sell TikTok to a U.S. company, and China would need to approve a sale. China has no intention of allowing the TikTok recommendation engine to be divested. ByteDance has already moved U.S. data to servers owned by Oracle, but U.S. lawmakers do not feel that is enough to protect users.

There are few U.S. companies that could afford to purchase TikTok, and the tech giants that could buy it would likely be restricted from doing so due to antitrust concerns.

ByteDance is asking the court to issue a declaratory judgment that the act violates the U.S. Constitution, preventing the U.S. Attorney General from enforcing it.

Note: Due to the political or social nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Political News forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Article Link: TikTok Sues U.S. Government Over Bill Requiring Sale

 

[truthsteve]

it's pretty bad when TikTok is NOT suing Apple but is suing the government instead. lmao

 

[vicviper789]

I'm surprised Tim Cook's overlords haven't told him to help ByteDance out

 

[wellander1]

Old news saw on a local television channel a few days ago

 

[clayj]

ByteDance can self-fornicate. We are under no obligation to allow a company which is controlled by a hostile foreign government to continue to operate in the US. If they won't sell, then shut down their access to the US by whatever means necessary.

 

[madmin]

Sell it to Intel, the ex-masters of Tik Tok

 

[Blackstick]

I'm just surprised they haven't established a US branch of operations to get around this issue.

"Nintendo of America Inc" etc.

 

[rjp1]

Fine, it can stay as soon as China lifts the ban on a ton of apps developed by US companies.

 

[Supercyborgninja]

This will make VPNs & TikTok more popular than it ever was.

 

[Villarrealadrian]

Why does it take so long to ban it? China bans every app in seconds, and why hasn’t apple banned 9gag? I think it’s the most racist app!

 

[NayborAxi]

They trying hard not to sell the company. My take is that if they don't sell and leave the US market then our lawmakers were right in saying that China had nefarious intent with Tiktok. Like why would you leave billions on the table just for some moral reason?

 

[Supercyborgninja]

Fine, it can stay as soon as China lifts the ban on a ton of apps developed by US companies.

There's a ton of American companies/apps in China.

Plus isn't the whole high horse "we're not China"(even though we're worse)?

 

[Supermallet]

In case you all missed it, Romney already gave the game away and admitted that the ban happened to curb pro-Palestine sentiment: https://www.axios.com/local/salt-la...blinken-tiktok-ban-israel-palestinian-content

Turns out all of that posturing about national security was BS that politicians sold to the American public to justify their blatantly unconstitutional actions!

 

[Supercyborgninja]

They trying hard not to sell the company. My take is that if they don't sell and leave the US market then our lawmakers were right in saying that China had nefarious intent with Tiktok. Like why would you leave billions on the table just for some moral reason?

Because it's morally awful to single out a company because it's destroying the PR veil of a foreign country.

 

[Supercyborgninja]

In case you all missed it, Romney already gave the game away and admitted that the ban happened to curb pro-Palestine sentiment: https://www.axios.com/local/salt-la...blinken-tiktok-ban-israel-palestinian-content

Turns out all of that posturing about national security was BS that politicians sold to the American public to justify their blatantly unconstitutional actions!

This was insane & surreal. A sitting senator & a sitting SoS just openly saying "yeah we just want to stop free speech". Wild times we're in honestly.

 

[iBreatheApple]

In case you all missed it, Romney already gave the game away and admitted that the ban happened to curb pro-Palestine sentiment: https://www.axios.com/local/salt-la...blinken-tiktok-ban-israel-palestinian-content

Turns out all of that posturing about national security was BS that politicians sold to the American public to justify their blatantly unconstitutional actions!

Didn’t the article, but it’s hard to believe considering they were trying to ban it before all of that started.

 

[alchemistmuffin]

ByteDance is asking the court to issue a declaratory judgment that the act violates the U.S. Constitution, preventing the U.S. Attorney General from enforcing it.

This will likely go to SCOTUS in the end.

Bank it.

(Bytedance will likely lose this case, but then question becomes will China retaliate, say by banning ALL Apple products outright)

 

[JPack]

I'm just surprised they haven't established a US branch of operations to get around this issue.

"Nintendo of America Inc" etc.

TikTok is the U.S. branch of operations. In the home country, it’s ByteDance. But that doesn’t even matter as First Amendment doesn’t cover where the source of where the communication comes from.

Most importantly, the government doesn’t even have any proof other than, there’s a risk it could happen.

 

[Supercyborgninja]

Didn’t the article, but it’s hard to believe considering they were trying to ban it before all of that started.

They were, but it never had traction & the bill was turning into 1875 parchment paper, for good reason because a major social media platform has never been banned.

I mean..WeChat is on the AppStore & that's China's GO TO APP!

 

[Unity451]

In case you all missed it, Romney already gave the game away and admitted that the ban happened to curb pro-Palestine sentiment: https://www.axios.com/local/salt-la...blinken-tiktok-ban-israel-palestinian-content

Turns out all of that posturing about national security was BS that politicians sold to the American public to justify their blatantly unconstitutional actions!

Correlation is not causation. People have been trying to ban tik tok long before the recent Israel/Palestinian conflict.

 

[jz0309]

Welcome to the US where lawyers rule, you can even sue when you're spilling coffee in your lap and win!
always blame someone else ...
and surprised it took them this long ...
But also, take a look at which apps/services are banned in China ...

 

[Supermallet]

Didn’t the article, but it’s hard to believe considering they were trying to ban it before all of that started.

There was vague gesturing about banning it before with no momentum, once it became clear US and Israeli propaganda were outright failing because people could see the genocide in Gaza occurring in real time, all of a sudden the TikTok ban got rammed through (as an addendum to a bill sending $14 billion in aid to Israel no less).

 

[JPack]

They trying hard not to sell the company. My take is that if they don't sell and leave the US market then our lawmakers were right in saying that China had nefarious intent with Tiktok. Like why would you leave billions on the table just for some moral reason?

U.S. represents only about 15% of ByteDance revenue of $120B. TikTok operates globally.

Why would ByteDance sell TikTok, give up the secret sauce code, and lose all revenue globally? That’s why they won’t sell.

 

[andrewxgx]

Correlation is not causation. People have been trying to ban tik tok long before the recent Israel/Palestinian conflict.

that conflict just gave them perfect excuse to do so
my theory is the whole thing is massive lobbying from Facebook. they didn't expected the social network that will eat their lunch away would come from outside US and they would have no way to buy them out.

 

[Ameer_1]

I don't see anything wrong with TikTok. I learn more on TikTok than on Instagram and Facebook. Many people don't know that American food produces so many chemicals that can harm you in the long run. For instance, Halls's cough drops have red 40 which can harm you the dye is thought to be linked to allergies, migraine, and mental disorders in children. American companies such as Facebook and Instagram will not tell you that. I started to travel around the world and realized if a food product is in America and not in another country it's bad for you. Even the cereal that people eat in America is bad. People should see the ingredient labels behind ketchup bottles and compare American ingredients to other countries. America is worried about an app when there are other things America should be worried about.