TikTok is not backing down from a fight with the US government, they are determined. After suing the US government, TikTok is opposing the sale or ban bill continuously. Now, the company has filed its latest legal opposition to the bill late last week.
In the latest filing with the court, the company has labeled the bill as “the most sweeping speech restriction in this country’s history.” This assessment seems extreme, but TikTok is maintaining its stance that this sell-off bill will have the same effect as a ban. TikTok believes that stated parameters and requirements would be impossible for the company to cater to before the bill is set to come into effect.
Here is something from the legal filing.
“The government’s attempted rehabilitation of the Act is as precedent-shattering as the Act itself. It says the Court should ignore Congress’s failure to enact findings explaining why it imposed this unprecedented speech restriction – and instead offers post hoc justifications resting on speculation and demonstrably erroneous factual assertions. It relies on secret submissions that it seeks to exempt from adversarial testing and public view. It brushes aside Congress’s denial of the protections it afforded all other companies – depriving only Petitioners of a statutory basis to contest that they are “controlled by a foreign adversary” or pose a threat. The government’s core legal contention – that a monumental speech restriction is subject to mere rational-basis review – flouts decades of settled precedent.”
So basically, TikTok is arguing that the law is not based on the evidence, but only on the perception of a threat from a “foreign adversary”.
However, the Justice Department claimed recently that TikTok has tracked US users’ views on sensitive issues, and shared that information with the Chinese parent company. According to them, the parent is required to pass on such information to the Chinese government on request.
With all these arguments, TikTok hopes to delay the ban bill as long as they can. They believe that Trump could abandon the bill if he comes to power.
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