TikTok vows legal challenge to potential US ban

(CNN) — TikTok will file a court challenge if Congress passes legislation paving the way to a nationwide ban of the app, a top executive told employees in an internal memo obtained by CNN.

On Saturday the House of Representatives passed a foreign aid package containing language that could lead to a ban of TikTok — and the bill could pass the Senate within days, Michael Beckerman, TikTok’s head of public policy for the Americas, warned employees in the memo he sent the same day.

“At the stage that the bill is signed [by President Joe Biden], we will move to the courts for a legal challenge,” Beckerman wrote to staff, describing the legislation as “an unprecedented deal worked out between the Republican Speaker [Mike Johnson] and President Biden.”

“This is the beginning, not the end of this long process,” Beckerman added. He invited employees to an internal town hall scheduled for Wednesday “for additional context.”

The memo was earlier reported by The Information. A TikTok spokesperson didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The legislation calls for forcing TikTok’s Chinese parent, ByteDance, to sell the app within 270 days — otherwise it would be illegal for US app stores to offer TikTok for downloads. The legislation also would allow Biden to extend that deadline by another 90 days if he determines there’s been progress toward a sale.

Foreshadowing its legal strategy, TikTok has already publicly opposed the bill as an infringement on its users’ First Amendment rights. Supporters of the legislation, by contrast, have said it is a necessary measure to protect Americans’ personal data and have pushed back on characterizations of it as a flat-out ban.

Some legal experts on the First Amendment have suggested TikTok could have a case, noting that courts have tended to look at the ultimate impacts of challenged laws on Americans’ speech and not just their stated intent.

“Absolutely TikTok is not going to take this lying down,” said John Nicoletti, executive director and professor of practice at The Cronkite Agency. “There’s 170 million people on the app. Seven million people probably use it for their, according to TikTok, for their livelihood. So they’re not going to take this lying down. There’ll be legislative maneuverings that they’ll try and do to try to keep it from becoming law.”

Nicoletti said something that stands out is the speed at which lawmakers are pushing this legislation.

“All of a sudden over the weekend, we found out that this piece of legislation was being attached to this foreign aid bill that was going for money to Ukraine and to Israel and to other foreign states,” he said. “It’s interesting that all of a sudden this piece of legislation moved so quickly into that bill as well and how quickly it’s now moving to the Senate.”

He said the debate could last into the fall.

“You saw former President Trump come out with his statements yesterday,” Nicoletti said. “This could become a political football and become part of our election cycle into ‘24.″

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