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TikTok Sues US Government Over Law Forcing Sale or Ban

Less than two weeks after President Biden signed a bill that will force TikTok's Chinese owner, ByteDance, to sell the popular social media app or face a ban in the United States, TikTok said it sued the federal government on Tuesday, arguing the law was unconstitutional. From a report: TikTok said ...

It also argued that a divestiture was "simply not possible," especially within the law's 270-day timeline, pointing to difficulties such as Beijing's refusal to sell a key feature that powers TikTok in the United States. "For the first time in history, Congress has enacted a law that subjects a single, named speech platform to a permanent, nationwide ban, and bars every American from participating in a unique online community with more than one billion people worldwide," the company said in the 67-page petition it provided, which initiates the lawsuit. While lawmakers who passed the bill have said the app is a national security threat because of its ties to China, the courts must now weigh those concerns against TikTok's argument that a sale or ban would violate the First Amendment free-speech rights of its users and hurt small businesses that owe their livelihood to the platform.

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