TikTok is suing the US government over the new law that would force the short-form video app to be divested from its China-based parent company ByteDance or face a ban in the US. In a court filing submitted Tuesday, TikTok says Congress has “taken the unprecedented step of expressly singling out and banning TikTok” and calls the move “unconstitutional.” The complaint argues that a sale from ByteDance isn’t possible and that the law would “force a shutdown” by January 19, 2025.
“Even the statements by individual Members of Congress and a congressional committee report merely indicate concern about the hypothetical possibility that TikTok could be misused in the future, without citing specific evidence — even though the platform has operated prominently in the United States since it was first launched in 2017,” the lawsuit states.