TikTok sued the U.S. government to block a ban. Here’s what happens now

The future of TikTok is more uncertain than ever after the social media company sued the U.S. government on Tuesday over a law that would force Chinese parent ByteDance to sell the app or face a national ban.

President Joe Biden signed legislation in April that gives ByteDance nine months to find a buyer for the popular short-form video app, and a three month extension if a deal is in progress. The Protecting Americans From Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, as it's known, passed with bipartisan support in both chambers of Congress.

TikTok argues that the bill violates the First Amendment, and that divestiture is "simply not possible: not commercially, not technologically, not legally," according to the company's legal filing.

"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 1 billion people worldwide," the lawsuit said.

American lawmakers have long argued that TikTok's foreign ownership poses a national security risk. Former President Donald Trump attempted to ban the platform through an executive order in 2020, laying out the path to a potential ban. That effort failed, but the issue gained resonance as concerns intensified surrounding China's heightened power on the global state.

Prior to the passage of the law, TikTok spent more than $2 billion on an initiative called "Project Texas" to better protect U.S. user data from foreign influence. But lawmakers continued pressing to advance legislation anyway.

Whether TikTok is successful in its lawsuit, filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, largely hinges on how the courts