TikTok Files Lawsuit Against US Government To Challenge Law Requiring ByteDance To Sell It By January 2025

Ngozi Nwanji
·2 min read
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It looks like TikTok is standing firm on not going down without a fight.

In April 2024, AFROTECH™ previously reported that President Joe Biden signed a law to ban TikTok if its owner, ByteDance, didn’t sell it within a year. The bill followed the House of Representatives’ introduction in March of the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, which aims to “protect the national security of the United States from the threat posed by foreign adversary controlled applications.” 

A main allegation that has come from U.S. government officials is that TikTok puts Americans’ personal data in danger of being exposed to the Chinese government, which catalyzed Biden’s law. However, TikTok has doubled down on stating the claim is false, saying it hosts data on U.S.-owned Oracle servers, according to CNN.

“We will not stop fighting and advocating for you,” TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew shared in a previous statement on its platform, per AP News. “We will continue to do all we can, including exercising our legal rights, to protect this amazing platform that we have built with you.”

Now, TikTok has officially opened the door to a legal battle. On May 7, the company filed a lawsuit to block the potential ban of the app in the U.S., CNN reports. In the petition, filed at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, ByteDance claims that the Biden administration’s law goes against freedom of speech and would block access to lawful information — making it unconstitutional.

Per the outlet, the petition stated, “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.”

While the legal battle is historic, if ByteDance comes up short, it will have to sell TikTok by Jan. 19, 2025, according to Reuters. As AFROTECH™ previously explained, whoever is looking to purchase the platform has to receive the green light from the Chinese government.