It could be a trial for the ages. TikTok, owned by Chinese company ByteDance, has taken the US state to court over a law that requires the social network to be sold to a US entity by 19 January – although a three-month extension is possible under certain circumstances – or else become unavailable in the US.
The basis for TikTok’s lawsuit was more than predictable: the company considers the ban to be an unprecedented attack on freedom of speech in the United States, which is enshrined in the First Amendment of the Constitution. This is a new edition of the old free speech vs. security debate, as TikTok is considered a danger to US national security.
The law is unprecedented in US history in its determination to ban a single company. When the US has banned other publications – as it did several Nazi magazines in the 1940s and eight communist publications in the so-called ‘Red Scare’ era of the 1950s – it has always done so in groups.
‘For the first time in history, Congress has implemented a law that subjects a speech platform to a permanent nationwide ban,’ says TikTok. The company also indirectly appeals to the 50.1% of the country’s population that has an account on the social network by explaining that the law ‘excludes all Americans from a unique online community of more than a billion people worldwide’.
Sigue toda la información de HIGHXTAR desde Facebook, Twitter o Instagram
You may also like...
