TikTok Faces Legal Challenges In US Courts Over App Ban

JAKARTA TikTok and its Chinese-based parent company ByteDance are facing heated debate at the US appeals court in their bid to overturn a law that would ban the short video app in the United States from January 19, 2025. In a two-hour hearing on Monday, September 16, TikTok's attorney, Andrew Pincus, sought to convince the court that laws banning the app violated the protection of free speech as regulated in the US Constitution.

Three judges from the US District Court of Appeals, namely Srinivasan, Neomi Rao, and Douglas Ginsburg, raised a series of difficult questions to Pincus who argued that the law was targeting TikTok unfairly and threatening the freedom of 170 million American users.

"For the first time in history, the US Congress has explicitly targeted a particular company and banned it from spreading information," Pincus said at the hearing.

This law, passed in April 2024 and signed by US President Joe Biden, requires ByteDance to sell or release TikTok assets in the US before the January 19, 2025 deadline. Otherwise, TikTok will be banned from operating in the United States. This move is driven by concerns that the Chinese government can access American user data or use the app to spy on US citizens.

US Justice Department prosecutor Daniel Tenny, who represented the government at the hearing, confirmed that TikTok poses a serious threat to US national security. According to Tenny, the app, which consists of more than two billion rows of code and is changed to 1,000 times a day, makes it very difficult for the US government to detect and control the potential manipulation by the Chinese side. "There is so much going on in China beyond US control, which makes it a huge national security risk," Tenny stressed.

In addition, Tenny mentioned that this risk exceeds only user data problems, but also the potential for information manipulation consumed by US citizens through the application, which can be used to disrupt political or social stability in the country.

Pincus, on the other hand, rejected the allegations and stated that the US government has not shown concrete evidence that TikTok is actually being used by the Chinese government for espionage or manipulation purposes.

"This law is a clear violation of the First Amendment, which protects free speech in the United States," Pincus said. He added that the law is the government's attempt to use national security reasons to silence a technology company and its users.

This trial is part of a lawsuit filed by TikTok and ByteDance in May 2024 to seek injunction to prevent the law from enacting. If this law is enforced, TikTok argues that it will create a dangerous precedent where the government can close or force the sale of digital platforms by simply claiming national security reasons.

The case also drew widespread attention as it reflected growing tensions between the US and China in the field of technology and data security. TikTok, which has more than 170 million users in the United States, has long been in the spotlight in discussions on how global technology companies should manage user data amid growing concerns about state surveillance.

To date, the court has not made a final decision, but the outcome of this trial will have a major impact on TikTok's future in the US as well as broader implications for freedom of speech and government control over tech companies.