TikTok Ban

President Joe Biden signed on April 24 a $95 billion national security package which included a provision which could ban TikTok, a platform 170 million Americans use. The bill gave TikTok nine months for its China-based parent company ByteDance to sell it or TikTok will be nationally banned. The president can also extend the deadline by 90 days if he sees significant progress towards TikTok selling, but this can only be done once. This would bring TikTok’s ban timeline up to a year. The 9-12 month deadline is an alteration of a previous version of the bill which gave TikTok six months to sell, conveniently avoiding the backlash of TikTok users until after the 2024 election.

On May 7, TikTok filed a lawsuit in the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for Washington, D.C. to sue the US government to stop them from enforcing the bill. They argued that the bill violates the constitutional right of free speech, calling it an “unprecedented violation” of the First Amendment. They further argued that national security concerns are not a good enough reason to restrict free speech and that the federal government has not met the burden of proof that TikTok’s ban is warranted. The legal proceedings of this lawsuit will likely delay the ban timeline for years.

Both the Trump and Biden administrations have tried to ban TikTok since 2020. Politicians and members of the national security community have said they are concerned about TikTok’s data collection and security practices. Other experts have been more skeptical of these claims, arguing that TikTok is no different from other apps when it comes to data security and that there isn’t much evidence of TikTok trying to manipulate public opinion with foreign propaganda.