TikTok and its Chinese parent company ByteDance on Thursday asked a U.S. court to strike down a law that would ban the popular short-video app on Jan. 19, arguing the U.S. government has refused to engage in any serious settlement talks after 2022.
Under a bill signed by President Biden in April, ByteDance has until January 19 next year to sell TikTok’s US assets or face a ban on the app, which is used by 170 million Americans.
ByteDance said a sale would be “technically, commercially and legally impossible.”
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is scheduled to hear oral arguments on September 16 in a lawsuit filed by TikTok, ByteDance, and TikTok users.
TikTok’s future in the United States may hinge on the outcome of the case, which could affect how the government uses its new powers to crack down on foreign-owned apps.
“This law marks a dramatic departure from our country’s tradition of defending an open internet and sets a dangerous precedent that allows political parties to target unpopular speech platforms and force them to be sold off or shut down,” ByteDance and TikTok argued in asking the court to strike down the law.
The bill was overwhelmingly passed by Congress just weeks after being introduced, following concerns from US lawmakers that China could use the app to access Americans’ data and spy on them.
TikTok argues that even if it was technically possible to separate or split the businesses, it would take years and that the law violates Americans’ free speech rights.
The bill also says the law unfairly singles out TikTok for punitive treatment, “ignoring the many other apps that operate large-scale operations in China and collect vast amounts of U.S. user data, as well as the many U.S. companies that develop software and employ engineers in China.”
ByteDance said lengthy negotiations between the company and the U.S. government abruptly ended in August 2022.
The company also released a redacted version of a more than 100-page draft national security agreement to protect TikTok user data in the United States, saying it has spent more than $2 billion on the effort.
The proposed agreement includes providing the U.S. government with a “kill switch” that would allow it to disable TikTok in the United States at its sole discretion if TikTok fails to comply with the agreement, and the United States has reportedly demanded that TikTok’s source code be transferred from China.
“The current Administration has determined that it would prefer to shut down TikTok in the United States and deplatform the speech of 170 million Americans, rather than continue to work on a practical, achievable, and effective solution to protect U.S. users through an enforceable agreement with the U.S. government,” TikTok’s lawyers wrote to the Justice Department in an April 1 email made public Thursday.
In 2020, then-President Donald Trump’s attempts to ban TikTok and WeChat, a Chinese company owned by Tencent, were blocked by the courts.
The White House has said it wants to end Chinese ownership for national security reasons but does not want to ban TikTok.
President Trump joined TikTok earlier this month and recently expressed concern about a possible ban.
The law bars app stores such as Apple and Alphabet Inc’s Google from offering TikTok.
Internet hosting services will also be banned from supporting TikTok unless ByteDance sells the app.
