Challenge to law forcing TikTok’s sale or US ban heard in federal court

ByteDance and several TikTok users contend the law violates their First Amendment rights; the government says the app’s Chinese ownership is a national security risk

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Participants hold signs in support of TikTok outside the US Capitol Building in March. Photo: Getty Images

Khushboo Razdanin WashingtonandBochen Hanin Washington

Published: 4:44am, 17 Sep 2024Updated: 11:00pm, 17 Sep 2024

TikTok and its Chinese owner, ByteDance, got their day in court on Monday, telling a federal appellate panel that a new law to force the short-video app’s sale or else see it banned in the US was unconstitutional and a violation of its users’ free speech rights.

The three-judge panel at the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia heard the oral arguments in a case challenging the law, signed by US President Joe Biden this spring.

Monday’s arguments came amid mounting national security concerns over Chinese ownership of the platform, which is used by 170 million Americans, and clashes in Congress and the courts over thorny questions about online free speech.

While TikTok has won legal victories against earlier bids to ban it in the US, this was the first time it is challenging a federal law.

A view of the US federal courthouse in Washington where TikTok’s legal challenge was heard on Monday. Photo: AFP

“This law imposes extraordinary speech prohibition based on indeterminate future risks,” Andrew Pincus, the lawyer for TikTok, told the court, adding that TikTok US was an American company and that ByteDance was registered in Cayman Islands.

He said that in targeting TikTok, the government – which contends that the app, with the data it collects about its American users, is a national security risk – was basing its threatened ban on something that had not happened yet but might some day.