Battle to ban TikTok in US gets underway in federal court

By Darren Lyn

HOUSTON, US (AA) - The battle over whether to ban TikTok in the US and remove the Chinese social media and video-sharing platform from app stores nationwide got underway Monday in a federal appeals court.

TikTok and its parent company ByteDance argued to a three-judge panel at the US Court of Appeals for the Washington, D.C. Circuit that the ban violates their Constitutional right of the First Amendment's freedom of speech and expression.

The ban was originally instated after Congressional concerns about the China-based company compiling and disseminating user data, especially since the Beijing government is considered an adversary to the United States.

US officials have warned for years that China could gain access to millions of users' data and use it to manipulate or spy on Americans, according to media outlets.

Lawmakers pushed to have the ban approved and President Joe Biden signed the legislation into law back in April, requiring TikTok to either be sold or face the January deadline to be removed from all US app stores, including play stores from tech giants Google and Apple.

TikTok told the court that the sale of the app would be untenable by the January deadline and asked for a preliminary injunction against the law, saying its implementation would be a "radical departure" from the US supporting an open internet and would set a "dangerous precedent."

"No compelling reason justifies Congress acting like an enforcement agency and specifically targeting petitioners," said TikTok's attorney Andrew Pincus. He added that the ban would bar free speech for 170 million Americans and noted that the company believed it was being singled out as a foreign-owned company for censorship.

The Justice Department argued that it was not attempting to censor any speech or content on the app, but rather protecting Americans from algorithmic manipulation and sprawling data collection of millions of users.

Attorney Daniel Tenny, representing the US government, said the ban was necessary because the data was "extremely valuable to a foreign adversary trying to compromise the security of the United States."

A ruling is expected in December, which would leave time for yet another appeal before the Jan. 19 deadline for the ban, or a sale of TikTok. If that appeal is made by either party, the case would likely go to the Supreme Court.