TikTok files federal appeal to fight TikTok ban despite Chinese access of American user data

TikTok and ByteDance have filed a federal appeal in the District of Columbia to fight the recently passed TikTok ban. The ban easily passed Congress and was signed into law by President Biden on April, 24 2024. The ban specifically sets a 270 day deadline to sell US TikTok operations to an American-friendly company, leave the US market, or face a fine of $5,000 per user. With over 170 million US users, TikTok can influence a broad number of Americans while providing personal user information to foreign entities.

Even decades ago, social media platforms have been used by bad actors for selling illegal drugs, human trafficking, influencing political races, and spreading terrorism. After Edward Snowden put his career and life on the line by releasing classified NSA documents in 2013, the world learned just how extensive America’s own online surveillance by the FBI, CIA, and NSA had become post-9/11 to counter such. Emails, social media posts, cellphone location and texts, and other electronic communications are monitored by US national security 24/7, and Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Verizon, and other American companies provide the government with extensive user data under the USA PATRIOT ACT and FISA.

Despite findings by ByteDance that illegal access to journalist data by employees has occurred, claims by TikTok employees that data has being shared with the Chinese government, and warnings by the directors of the FBI and NSA, TikTok is fighting the ban, arguing it is unconstitutional and unfairly targets the company, even while the company continues to mine extensive user data including the identities of LGBT users.

ByteDance and TikTok want the “Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act” (H.R. 7521) declared in violation of the Constitution and an order preventing its enforcement. The appeal argues the ban violates four aspects of the US Constitution in the following ways: 

• 1. Violation of the First Amendment
  The ban violates the first amendment rights of both the 170 million users in a public forum and TikTok itself in “creating creative compilations of speech”.
  
  
• 2. Unconstitutional Bill of Attainder
  The ban is “legislative punishment…of specifically designated persons or groups” by specifying ByteDance and TikTok in the Act.
  
  
• 3. Violation of Equal Protection
  The ban violates the Fifth Amendment’s Due Cause Process by singling out ByteDance and TikTok “for adverse treatment without any reason for doing so”, such as evidence that the companies are a “’significant threat[s]’ to U.S. national security…”
  
  
• 4. Unconstitutional Taking
  The ban violates the Fifth Amendment’s Takings Clause by effectively taking “private property without just compensation”.

Readers who want to money off TikTok until the end can read how to blow up followers. Readers who don’t want their kids spending 4.8 hours a day online can buy sports equipment and tell them to go play IRL.