Tik Tok promised to fight its potential ban in the US - and now the social media giant has made it official.
TikTok and its parent company, ByteDance, sued the federal government on Tuesday to halt a nationwide ban on the app.
The bill, which was bundled with foreign aid and signed into law by President Joe Biden on April 24, gives ByteDance nine months to a year to sell or spin off Tik Tok's American assets or face a ban from US app stores.
State and federal politicians have spent years trying to assert greater control over TikTok's US operations.
Politicians fear that ByteDance - which is headquartered in Beijing - could be compelled to share US user data with the Chinese Communist Party or run influence operations on its behalf.
Tik Tok has denied both these claims and the US government has yet to present formal evidence that either action has occurred.
Tik Tok's legal arguments are based on the First Amendment, which says that Congress can't pass a law that inhibits free speech. TikTok argues in the suit that the bill called the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act - deprives the app's 170 million American users of their First Amendment rights.
