TikTok is suing the United States government in an effort to stop a bill passed in April that would have forced the Chinese owner of the video app to sell or face a ban, CNBC reports.
The suit, filed Tuesday in the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, claims the bill, the Protecting Americans from Apps Controlled by Foreign Adversaries Act, violates constitutional free speech protections.
The lawsuit calls the law “an unprecedented violation” of the First Amendment.
“For the first time in history, Congress has passed a law that subjects a single platform of expression to a permanent nationwide ban,” TikTok wrote in the complaint, “and that prohibits every American from participating in a single online community of more than 1 billion people worldwide.”
The company argues that citing national security concerns is not sufficient reason to restrict free speech and that the burden is on the federal government to prove that the restriction is justified. He failed to fulfill that duty, the complaint states.
The lawsuit, which has been expected since President Joe Biden signed the bill into law last month, is set to extend an already long deadline for a potential ban or sale of the app.
ByteDance, the Chinese owner of TikTok, has already had more than a year to make a move. Now, legal proceedings will interrupt that deadline, meaning it could be years before the ban takes effect.
The complaint states that Congress has provided no evidence to suggest that TikTok poses the kinds of data security risks or foreign propaganda that “could justify” the law, and has failed to demonstrate that the app presents any specific harm in those areas.
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