Tik Tok sues US Govt... the saga continues

[Maxmars]

This is another follow-on about the TikTok and its - now legislated - impending expulsion from the US market...

If you are completely new to the topic I offer this simplistic explanation.  TikTok has become wildly popular, particularly to the younger demographic, within the US.  As a platform for communicating it figures among the most frequented internet "locations" in which they engage in social media use.  TikTok is not American-owned.  The US market is important, but has been reported that the US government is alarmed by the relationship it shares with the Chinese government... a known "Foreign Adversary."  The US issued an ultimatum, "Transfer TikTok to a non-Chinese owner, or don't do business here."  Senators, and Congressional member sent this ultimatum in the form U.S. Legislation (H.R.7521 - Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act) which I expand upon in the thread "Recent legislation "banning" TikTok might not survive."

As should have been expected, our legislators crafted the wording of the new "law" in a troublingly ignorant way.  And now TikTok is pursuing the matter by suing the government for... well... you'll see.

From ArsTechnica: TikTok and its Chinese owner sue US government over “foreign adversary” law
Subtitled: Law curtails "massive amounts of protected speech," TikTok and ByteDance allege.
 

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TikTok and its owner ByteDance today sued the federal government to block the "Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications" law that would prohibit TikTok in the US if the company isn't sold to a non-Chinese firm. The complaint in the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit alleges that the law is unconstitutional and asks for a court order prohibiting enforcement.

TikTok and ByteDance say the law "would allow the government to decide that a company may no longer own and publish the innovative and unique speech platform it created. If Congress can do this, it can circumvent the First Amendment by invoking national security and ordering the publisher of any individual newspaper or website to sell to avoid being shut down."

The law will "silenc[e] the 170 million Americans who use the platform to communicate in ways that cannot be replicated elsewhere," TikTok and ByteDance alleged.

"By banning all online platforms and software applications offered by 'TikTok' and all ByteDance subsidiaries, Congress has made a law curtailing massive amounts of protected speech," the lawsuit said. "Unlike broadcast television and radio stations, which require government licenses to operate because they use the public airwaves, the government cannot, consistent with the First Amendment, dictate the ownership of newspapers, websites, online platforms, and other privately created speech forums."

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There's the First Amendment hit we should have expected...  and now the Fifth...
 

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TikTok and ByteDance claim the law violates "the Fifth Amendment's Due Process Clause because it singles Petitioners out for adverse treatment without any reason for doing so" and "effects an unlawful taking of private property without just compensation, in violation of the Fifth Amendment's Takings Clause." TikTok and ByteDance also say the US law "is an unconstitutional bill of attainder" because it singles out the plaintiffs "for legislative punishment."

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The legislators, lawyers most of them, built a legal weapon specifically pointed at TikTok... that's not cool man.  They never should have specified TikTok in the legislation, and now we see the fight continuing... at least the lawyers will be well-paid.

I have to wonder if they crafted the legislation wanting to lose this battle... or maybe keep it going.
 

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The US would try to justify the law on national security grounds. US lawmakers have alleged that the Chinese Communist Party can weaponize TikTok to manipulate public opinion and access user data.

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Of course, once this goes into the National Security realm... let's just say we won't be privy to all the details anymore.

The show is not over, folks!

[Maxmars]

Follow up for those watching this story...

From Endgaget.com: A group of TikTok creators are also suing the US government to stop a ban of the app
 

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A group of TikTok creators have joined the legal fight to keep the app from being banned in the United States. Eight creators have sued the US government in an effort to block a law requiring TikTok's parent company ByteDance to sell the service.
 
The lawsuit claims that the “Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act” is unconstitutional because it violates the First Amendment rights of the creators who depend on the platform. “They have found their voices, amassed significant audiences, made new friends, and encountered new and different ways of thinking—all because of TikTok’s novel way of hosting, curating, and disseminating speech,” it states. “The Act’s ban of TikTok threatens to deprive them, and the rest of the country, of this distinctive means of expression and communication.”
 
The lawsuit comes one week after TikTok filed its own lawsuit against the government. According to The Washington Post, the company is “covering” the legal fees for the creators participating in the latest suit. It’s also strategy that has worked for the company in the past. A group of Montana-based TikTok creators sued the state over an attempted statewide ban last year. That effort was ultimately successful and the ban never went into effect. The Montana creators were represented by the same law firm currently repping the eight creators involved in the latest suit.

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We shall see if this amounts to anything other than theater...

[guyfriday]

sounds like the CCP doesn't like it when other countries don't like to play their games.

[Coop]

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We have so many other issues more important, I just dont get this bs legislation.

However, I also dont give a rats ass if some "creator" cant make money by trying on clothes, or whatever other useless thing they film in videos.

[Maxmars]

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We have so many other issues more important, I just dont get this bs legislation.

However, I also dont give a rats ass if some "creator" cant make money by trying on clothes, or whatever other useless thing they film in videos.

You are correct... the important issue is not TikTok.  It's just one other thing added to a mix of others...

TikTok, unfortunately, was afforded a novice-level opportunity to protract the struggle, which happens to affect those "monetizers" who hitched their wagon to the platform.

But first and fifth amendment considerations should have been a basic premise fundamental to the legislation they wrote.  They seemed to ignorantly "skipped over that part" of the deliberations necessary to craft US Legislation... perhaps it wasn't "politically" productive. 

Or perhaps they legitimately overlooked it - shudder the thought - because if so, these "our" bastion representatives in the US Government, these 'models' of "leadership" and "service to the nation," just plain suck as the 'lawyers' we pay them to be (and most of them are.)

My point to focus on isn't TikTok, their enabling exploitation of private information, their mighty and subtle manipulation of their 'audience/consumer base,' the fact that the financial benefit, at least in part, services our "foreign adversary" (welcome to the terminology of economic warfare.)

The legislators weren't content with creating a law to address foreign adversary activities, they specifically mentioned TikTok... Constitutional hazard number one (Fifth Amendment)  They mad no provision to address the Constitutional need to curtail any communications service provider (Constitutional hazard number two) - they only summarized it as a "national security" matter... you can't be that vague in the Constitution...  (they skipped over specificity where required, and provided it where it was wrong to do so...)  

It's like they did this on purpose.... In which case, I would like to know why.

Yeah, we have other irons in the fire... but want our Constitution bullet proof... but I fear these people either just don't "get it," or "just don't care." 

It is not the people who must be controlled, it's the government... It's the very reason for a Constitution. 

The government must be restrained, or we will become the government's 'property' metaphorically speaking.