World

TikTok sued in the US, protesting President Joe Biden's ban

May 08, 2024

Washington [US], May 8: TikTok is trying to prevent the ban, after the US issued an 'ultimatum' forcing the app to sell to a non-Chinese company or be banned.
ByteDance, the company that owns TikTok, has just filed a lawsuit in US federal court, seeking to block the law signed by President Joe Biden banning or forcing the company to resell this video sharing application to give up its involvement in China. .
The lawsuit argues that the law is unconstitutional on many issues, including the protection of free speech under the First Amendment of the US Constitution, according to Reuters. The law signed by Mr. Biden on April 24, gives ByteDance until January 19, 2025 to sell TikTok or be banned.
"For the first time in history, the US Congress has enacted a law requiring that a separate and named speech platform be permanently banned nationwide," according to the lawsuit.
ByteDance said removing the app was "simply commercially, technologically and legally impossible". "The law will force TikTok to shut down by January 19, 2025, silencing 170 million Americans who use the platform to communicate in ways that cannot be replicated elsewhere," according to the lawsuit.
The White House said they want to end Chinese ownership of TikTok for national security reasons, not ban TikTok. The White House and the US Department of Justice declined to comment on the lawsuit.
The lawsuit is TikTok's latest move to prevent efforts to shut down this application in the US, in the context of observers saying that companies like Snap and Meta seek to take advantage of the unpredictable political situation that TikTok faces. present to take away advertising money.
TikTok has denied that it shares US user data, and accused the country's lawmakers of fueling concerns about "speculation".
Meanwhile, Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi, a senior member of the Democratic Party in the committee on China in the US House of Representatives, said that the above law is "the only way to address the national security threat posed by caused by ByteDance 's ownership of apps like TikTok ."
Source: Thanh Nien Newspaper