Less than two weeks after President Biden signed a bill that could outlaw TikTok, the social media platform and its Beijing-based parent company ByteDance are challenging the bill in court.
TIK Tok pretends that the Protecting Americans from Apps Controlled by Foreign Adversaries Act, which gives TikTok nine months to split from ByteDance or remove its face from US app stores, is unconstitutional and effectively bans it from the US until next year.
Ditching ByteDance “is simply not possible: not commercially, not technologically, not legally. And certainly not in the 270-day timeframe required by the Law,” TikTok said in a suit filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on Tuesday.
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“There is no question: The law will force a shutdown of TikTok by January 19, 2025, silencing the 170 million Americans who use the platform to communicate in ways that cannot be replicated elsewhere,” the lawsuit said.
TikTok's short-form video style has been adopted by competitors HOW to YouTubevia YouTube Shorts, and Instagramwith Reels.
TikTok asked the court to issue a ruling stating that the act violates the US Constitution and blocks the implementation of the act. The recording reinforces ByteDance's recent public statements that there are no plans to sell TikTok.
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Lawmakers pushed for bill to ban TikTok on national security grounds, repeatedly examining TikTok on it relationships to the Chinese government.
TikTok claims that the US data is walledbut the employees told him The Wall Street Journal in January this data is still sometimes shared with ByteDance.
TikTok officially launched in the US in 2018 and grew quickly on top of the most downloaded applications list in 2020, 2021 and 2022. With GROWING reGULAtOry reviewTikTok growth rate has slowed downbut the company is still in the first five the most popular social media companies in the world and has more than 1.5 billion monthly active users.
TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew was an honorary chair at The Met Gala on Monday, marking the first time a social media executive has held the title.