Lawyers for the social network filed a two-hour challenge on September 16 in front of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to block a law that would completely and permanently ban TikTok in the US starting January 19, 2025. As a result, 170 million American users would lose access to the app.
According to TikTok lawyers, such actions by American authorities constitute a violation of the US Constitution on a number of grounds, including an attack on free speech and a violation of the First Amendment, which protects against government restrictions on free speech. Moreover, since the beginning of the discussion between the authorities and the social network, government representatives have not presented any evidence that TikTok poses a threat to US national security.
A representative from the US Department of Justice insisted that TikTok is owned by a Chinese company and that everything in the PRC is somehow controlled by the state. And so TikTok poses a threat to US national security because of its access to vast amounts of Americans’ personal data and its ability to secretly manipulate the information Americans consume through the popular app.
There is no court ruling on the case yet. By law, ByteDance must sell its TikTok assets in the US by January 19 or face a full ban.
Source: Ferra
I am a professional journalist and content creator with extensive experience writing for news websites. I currently work as an author at Gadget Onus, where I specialize in covering hot news topics. My written pieces have been published on some of the biggest media outlets around the world, including The Guardian and BBC News.
