TikTok and parent company ByteDance argue that a potential ban would violate the right to free expression for US users.Lawyers for the social media app TikTok and parent company ByteDance are squaring off in court with the United States Justice Department over a potential ban that the companies say would violate US freedom of speech laws.
On Monday, a three-judge federal US Court of Appeals panel in Washington, DC began hearing oral arguments from both sides.
The video-sharing app used by 170 million people in the US has argued a ban would be a “radical departure from this country’s tradition of championing an open Internet“, while the Justice Department has said the app poses a “serious national-security threat”.
In April, the US Congress overwhelmingly passed a bipartisan bill requiring ByteDance to divest its US TikTok assets by January 19 or face a national ban, driven by concerns that the Chinese government could use TikTok to spy on people in the US or access their data.
The company has denounced those concerns as baseless, stating that it has never been asked to share US user data with the Chinese government. ByteDance is seeking an injunction barring the law from taking effect.
“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 stated in a June legal brief. “It would also become an island, preventing Americans from exchanging views with the global TikTok community.”
A survey of US a …