TikTok ramps up attacks on Biden administration in challenging prospective ban

CNN —

TikTok ramped up its attacks on the Biden administration Thursday over a law that could ban the popular app from the United States, arguing in a court filing that US TikTok users could be forced to live on an “island” of content disconnected from the rest of the world if the platform is forced to find a new owner.

The legal filing also publicizes, for the first time, the text of a draft agreement between TikTok and the US government that the company claims would have addressed national security concerns linked to the app but that was allegedly discarded in favor of legislation that TikTok argues violates the First Amendment.

Thursday’s filing marks TikTok’s opening salvo in a pivotal case that could not only determine the fate of an app used by 170 million Americans but also how courts interpret the First Amendment and its relationship to all online speech. The Justice Department declined to comment.

TikTok has insisted it is not possible for its Chinese parent ByteDance to divest from the app – “not possible technologically, commercially, or legally” – and not by the January 2025 deadline laid out by the law that President Joe Biden signed in April.

“Even if divestiture were feasible, TikTok in the United States would still be reduced to a shell of its former self, stripped of the innovative and expressive technology that tailors content to each user,” the company wrote in its brief. “It also would become an island, preventing Americans from exchanging views with the global TikTok community.”

That is because the law TikTok is challenging prohibits the type of data-sharing agreements that would be necessary to display international TikTok content to US TikTok users, the company claimed in its filing.

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