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TikTok has launched a long-awaited legal battle to stop its Chinese owners from being forced to sell off the short-video platform’s U.S. operations, arguing it violates Americans’ free speech rights.
TikTok and Chinese parent company ByteDance were told in April that they had to divest from TikTok in the United States by January or the app could be banned in the country.
The bill, signed by President Joe Biden, gives the U.S. government the power to require such sales for national security reasons.
Concerns in the case center on the risk that Beijing could collect data on TikTok’s 170 million American users and that Chinese authorities could force TikTok to spy on them.
The company insists it is not an attempt to ban TikTok, but Thursday’s filing questioned whether that is a foregone conclusion if the new law remains in effect.
ByteDance said the sale was “not technically, commercially or legally possible”.
The document also states that the law violates Americans’ constitutional right to free speech and reveals that it cost $2 billion to protect the data of American users.
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