Despite the cringy sloganeering Nancy Pelosi is lying at us with, reasonable people understand that Congress is trying to get rid of TikTok. And after a majority vote in favor of the ban at the house, it’s looking like Congress may actually pull together enough to put the squeeze on the dance app. It’s all in the name of “protecting the American public,” I just wish they had that same energy for student loans debt or healthcare for all or any of the stuff that people are actually requesting. If it also passes in the Senate, it is unlikely the fight ends there — that will just motivate ByteDance to take the squabble to court. From Bloomberg Law:
Once again, the US government is aiming to shut down TikTok unless it’s divested from Beijing-based ByteDance. But the company has made clear it has no intention of selling. Indeed, TikTok’s management vowed in an internal memo to staff “we will move to the courts for a legal challenge” if the bill winding its way through Congress is signed into law.
That sets the stage for a watershed legal battle between the US government and the offspring of a $240 billion startup that’s come to define China’s growing technological muscle. The outcome could define the business landscape for Chinese companies like Tencent Holdings Ltd. and PDD Holdings Inc.’s Temu with growing US ambitions. And it’s a test of how Beijing will respond to growing pressure on homegrown champions from ByteDance to Huawei Technologies Co. The proposed bill in fact deliberately calls out the potential to circumscribe apps from countries that count as foreign adversaries.
Might be hard for most to stomach this much drama over an app on teenagers’ phones, but them’s the facts. Billions of dollars are at stake and it’s not just for for ByteDance. The outcome of this case could set precedent for how massively popular foreign apps are regulated in the country for years to come, not to mention open a massive power vacuum for the silly app that also doubles as a massive news and information platform market.
TikTok Digs In to Fight US Ban With 170 Million Users at Stake [Bloomberg Law]
US Supreme Court Scrutinizes Anti-Camping Laws Used Against The Homeless [Reuters]
Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord™ in the Facebook group Law School Memes for Edgy T14s. He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boatbuilder who cannot swim, a published author on critical race theory, philosophy, and humor, and has a love for cycling that occasionally annoys his peers. You can reach him by email at cwilliams@abovethelaw.com and by tweet at @WritesForRent.
