TikTok announced that it plans to sue the U.S. government with a new law banning the app nationwide, unless its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, sells it from the app.

According to a report from the BBC, TikTok called the newly passed act a "special intrusion on free speech" of 17,000 million American users. The act is based on "speculative concerns," which in fact have little basis, and states that it is asking the DC Circuit Court of Appeals to block the ban.

White House press Secretary Carine Jean・Pierre referred the question to the U.S. Department of Justice, but said the law was "not a ban." It's a sale".

TikTok's parent company, ByteDance, said it had no plans to sell its business, setting the very real possibility that tiktok would be banned in the US. The Chinese government has said it considers U.S. law to be a "bully" and opposes the sale anyway, so I'm wondering if ByteDance can sell it from tiktok, even if it wants to sell it from tiktok. 

The TikTok lawsuit follows the passage of a foreign Adversary-controlled application law protecting Americans from deportation. It's a pretty self-explanatory title. It passed the House of Representatives on 4/22 and then the Senate. Just 1 day later, US President Joe Biden signed the bill.

A source of U.S. concern is that TikTok and its parent company ByteDance are subject to the authority of Chinese authorities. This means that data should be shared if requested. That's the part that makes the U.S. government nervous. We do not want the personal data of U.S. citizens to fall into the hands of the Chinese government.

Governments with concerns are not the only ones. TikTok is banned from government devices in several countries in Europe, the majority of states in the United States, and Canada. Australia is weighing a similar ban, and in India it is completely banned.

When it comes to predicting what will happen in a lawsuit, even for constitutional lawyers, it's a difficult issue. Freedom of speech is a central tenet of American democracy, with left and right groups on the political spectrum coming out and opposing the ban for those reasons.  Whatever the outcome of the lawsuit, there is no doubt that it has implications far beyond TikTok.