Potential ban on TikTok: US calls for accelerated procedure

Hibapress

The US Department of Justice has just asked an appeals court to set an accelerated timetable to examine the law requiring the Chinese social network TikTok to sell its assets in the United States by January 19.

Last April, the US Congress adopted a text which forces ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, to sell its application within twelve months, under penalty of being banned from the country.

According to media reports, ByteDance and a group of TikTok content creators have joined the U.S. Department of Justice in asking the District of Columbia Court of Appeals to rule before December 6, so they can seek review at the Supreme Court if necessary.

Accused of “compromising” national security by allowing China to access the data of American users, the social network, which has more than 170 million users in the United States, reacted to the American approach by filing a complaint against the federal administration.

For TikTok, the law adopted by Congress and signed by President Joe Biden, “violates freedom of expression, guaranteed by the First Amendment to the US Constitution”.

“For the first time in history, Congress has passed a law that permanently bans one platform of expression nationwide, and prohibits every American from participating in any community single online platform with more than a billion people worldwide,” lawyers for the Chinese company pointed out in the complaint.

TikTok still believes that national security concerns are not a sufficient reason to restrict free speech and that the onus is on the federal government to prove that such restriction is justified.

The federal government and dozens of US states have already banned the use of TikTok on work devices.