TikTok has sued the US government over the ban the Trump administration issued that affects its US operations.
“We do not take suing the government lightly, they said. “However we feel we have no choice but to take action to protect our rights, and the rights of our community and employees,” Tiktok also mentioned their employee base. “. “Our more than 1,500 employees across the U.S. pour their hearts into building this platform every day.”
The suit was filed in the Federal District Court for the Central District of California. It is the company’s most direct challenge against Trump’s administration. Trump signed that executive order to ban TikTok and also WeChat in 45 days.
In the suit, TikTok argued that Trump’s administration failed to follow due process and act in good faith. They also said they didn’t provide evidence that TikTok was an actual threat or justify its punitive actions. Furthermore, TikTok claims that the purported national security threat were based on outdated news articles.
Interesting enough, TikTok said that many of tis top personnel are not subject to Chinese law. They also said that content moderation across TikTok is led by a team based in US independent from China.
What happened before?
Early this month, Trump signed an executive order that banned Tiktok from doing business with US residents. He cited the reason as being a measure to protect the nation to address the threat posed by the social network.
He claimed that TikTok collects vast swaths of information like location data and search history. Trump also says that this data allows the Chinese Communist Party to track locations of Federal employees.
TikTok’s fight with the US is the second major Chinese company to go toe to toe with the US government after Huawei. Last year, Huawei was barred from doing business with US companies which made them decide to bank on their own ecosystem.
