TikTok CEO Shou Chew said on Wednesday that the company will go to court to try to stay online in the United States.
In a video posted on the app, Chew denounced a possible ban enacted this Wednesday by President Joe Biden. The law has a built-in nine-month delay, giving TikTok’s parent company, Beijing-based ByteDance, the opportunity to sell the app rather than face a national ban.
“Rest assured, we’re not going anywhere,” Chew, who is from Singapore, said in the two-minute video posted to TikTok’s main corporate account. “We are confident and will continue to fight for your rights in court. The facts and the Constitution are on our side, and we hope to prevail.”
About an hour after it was posted, the video had around 176,000 likes.
TikTok already has a record of court victories. In 2020, a federal judge blocked an attempt by then-President Donald Trump to ban TikTok in the United States, ruling that an order by the mogul was “arbitrary and capricious.”
In November, a different federal judge blocked a law in Montana that threatened to ban TikTok statewide. The judge ruled in favor of five content creators who had sued.
He said the law “overwhelms state power and infringes on users’ constitutional rights.”
The debate over the future of TikTok is not only about free speech online and the future of social media, but also about how Americans think about data security and who is deciding what they see online.
Proponents of a ban argue that U.S. users’ personal information is not secure because of Chinese ownership of the app, which critics say creates the possibility for the Chinese to spy on users. Proponents of the ban also say China could pressure the company to manipulate what users see. in order to promote the country’s foreign policy objectives.
TikTok has said it is working to alleviate security concerns by storing data in the United States and that propaganda concerns are unfounded.
The proposed federal ban that Biden signed this Wednesday was included in a $95 billion national security package with aid to Israel, Taiwan and Ukraine.