TikTok gears up for legal fight in US to prevent ban

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TikTok is gearing up for a long legal battle against legislation in the US that threatens to ban the app in its largest market if its Chinese owner ByteDance refuses to sell the viral video platform.  

The US House of Representatives on Saturday passed a package of national security bills that included legislation that would result in TikTok being banned in the country if Chinese parent company ByteDance does not divest the app. 

Michael Beckerman, TikTok’s public policy head in the US, told staff in response that if the bill became law, the company would “move to the courts for a legal challenge”. 

“This legislation is a clear violation of the First Amendment rights of TikTok’s 170mn American users,” he said in a memo to staff, according to people who saw it. “We’ll continue to fight.”

The bill was packaged together with funding for Ukraine and Israel and sent to the US Senate, which is expected to pass the measure this week before it is signed by President Joe Biden. 

“This is the beginning, not the end, of this long process,” Beckerman told TikTok employees. The group is set to hold a town hall for staff on the US situation on Wednesday. 

The people said ByteDance’s general counsel Erich Andersen, who also leads TikTok’s legal team and who would be responsible for steering the company’s legal strategy, would probably step down before any court battle begins. 

Andersen joined ByteDance from Microsoft in 2020, meaning his large stock pay package would be fully vested after four years on the job, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Andersen indicated to some staff that he would stay on in the short term as the company steadied itself ahead of the expected legal battle, the person added.   

A series of TikTok executives in the US have exited after the four-year mark, including the company’s former chief operating officer, Vanessa Pappas.  

Bloomberg News earlier reported that TikTok was preparing to remove Andersen. The Information first reported on Beckerman’s memo. 

ByteDance has successfully used US courts to thwart several attempted bans in the US.

Last year a federal judge blocked Montana from banning the app on devices in the state before it could go into effect, with the judge saying the ban probably violated the first amendment right to free speech.

Before leaving office in 2020, President Donald Trump tried to ban the app in an executive order that also sought to force the sale of TikTok. Courts blocked its implementation and President Joe Biden gave up on the legal fight after taking office.

Separately, the EU executive said on Monday it has given TikTok 48 hours to address concerns over whether it had broken EU law. Regulators are worried that a reward programme that offers points and vouchers to users of its TikTok Lite app in France and Spain is addictive and harmful to children’s mental health.

With additional reporting from Javier Espinoza in Brussels