TikTok Creators Unite To Legally Challenge US Government Over New Bill Banning The App

The news about President Biden signing the TikTok divestiture bill into the country’s law has not been appreciated by many around the country.

This is why creators are now joining forces to legally challenge the American Government with a new lawsuit that was filed inside the Federal Court on Tuesday.

The company’s CEO has already mentioned time and time again how they would fight back as the law failed to follow America’s own First Amendment. And he even went as far as to conclude that it was unconstitutional and must be removed.

Remember, the app has a user base of close to 170 million individuals in the US who make use of this platform to generate a living. So to scrap it entirely for a reason that many feel is unlawful is causing massive concern.

The bill first came into play last month after the country’s head of state signed it. It states that the platform must be separate from its parent firm which is based in China, called ByteDance. However, the latter has argued and confirmed that it would rather lose functions in the US markets than go about selling off its algorithms to other US-based sellers.

In this particular legal case, creators argue that this law is undermining the country’s own principles and stops it from being an area where creativity stems. The news regarding the latest lawsuit was first broken by a legal company that represented all those who had signed a petition against it.

They hope to block this ban from coming into effect, filing the case as a First Amendment legal challenge that is on behalf of several creators.

The company that has pulled out the lawsuit has close to 600 legal experts that span around the country in seven different American cities. And it’s safe to say that it’s a force to reckon with.

Both TikTok and ByteDance rolled out their own separate lawsuit on this front to block all claims generated for those taking place on May 7th. They felt such a ban was designed for destruction and intense manipulation.

It was also said to silence many American citizens and that was not going to go unnoticed. So now, they’re putting up a fight and failing to back down.

TikTok says it has over the years spent a huge sum of funds that go into billions, just so that it could ensure users’ privacy and safety were never compromised. They wished to make sure the app was far from being implicated and manipulated by authorities in China. But the way things have unfolded recently and the accusations that have been labeled against the app are just devastating.

For those who may have missed it, security officials at the White House accused TikTok of colllecting mass amounts of sensitive data and sharing that with China’s government. This is why the platform was called out as a huge national security threat.

Lawmakers called TikTok a surveillance and security nightmare that must be curbed before it’s too late. Meanwhile, not everyone in the country feels a ban was necessary or the right decision.

A poll carried out before the decision for the ban came into play had the majority of the country’s population holding a belief that a ban and separation of the app from its parent firm was not the right decision or even possible.

Meanwhile, content creators in this regard are arguing and fighting for their rights to freedom of expression. From making content to selling things through the app, many are being stripped of their basic rights and that’s not something they’re willing to accept silently.

Image: DIW-Aigen

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