ByteDance may be suing the Department of Justice (DOJ), but the two have now joined forces in an effort to fast-track the company’s legal challenge to a potentially imminent TikTok ban.
TikTok, and its parent company ByteDance, along with a separate group of eight TikTok creators announced lawsuits against the federal government last week in TikTok Inc. v Garland and Firebaugh v. Garland. The petitioners of the two cases joined forces with the target of the lawsuits, the DOJ, and filed a motion to expedite the legal challenges to a law that forces ByteDance to divest itself from TikTok or exit the United States market. Together, they requested that the Court come to a decision about the case by Dec. 6, 2024 to allow the company to act before Jan. 19, 2025 when the law is set to take effect.
In the expedition request, the petitioners argued that the law demanding that TikTok shed its Chinese control “is subject to substantial challenge,” and due to TikTok’s large user base, “the public at large has a significant interest in the prompt disposition of this matter.”
The motion also echoed ByteDance and TikTok’s joint lawsuit, which claimed that “‘qualified divestiture’” of TikTok as defined in the statute is not “commercially, technologically, or legally feasible.” The social media company added that “TikTok Petitioners maintain that the possibility of a 90-day extension under the Act will not be available to them because it would require the President to determine that ‘significant progress’ has been made toward a ‘qualified divestiture’ which is not feasible.”
Given the high stakes, all parties asked that opening briefs begin as early as June 20 with oral arguments beginning in September and a decision by December. “To ensure that there is adequate time before the Act’s prohibitions take effect to request emergency relief from the Supreme Court if necessary, the parties respectfully ask this Court to issue its decision on the merits of these actions by December 6, 2024,” the motion reads.
This comes after the company feined devotion to freedom of speech and concern for its users' rights being allegedly violated. “There is no question: the Act will force a shutdown of TikTok by January 19, 2025, silencing the 170 million Americans who use the platform to communicate in ways that cannot be replicated elsewhere,” TikTok wrote in its lawsuit against the DOJ.
But TikTok did not seem to care much about the freedom of speech of its users before it found out it might be banned. A Sept. 2022 MRC Free Speech America study found that TikTok permanently banned 11 pro-free speech organizations including Live Action, Judicial Watch and The Babylon Bee.
Federal Communications Commissioner called TikTok out on its unserious understanding of the purpose of the law. “While TikTok trots out the expected grab bag of arguments, it adopts a strange strategy of ignoring the reason for the law,” Carr stated in an X post. “TikTok wants this to be a case about the content of its speech. It is not. It is about TikTok's malign conduct - conduct the Constitution doesn't protect.”
Conservatives are under attack. Contact your representatives and demand that Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency, clarity on so-called “hate speech” and equal footing for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us using MRC Free Speech America’s contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.
