Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has vowed to file a lawsuit following the TikTok ban on “constitutional grounds.”
“I’m going to file a lawsuit challenging the TikTok ban on Constitutional grounds,” Kennedy wrote on X.
“Don’t be fooled — the TikTok ban is not about China harvesting your data. That’s a smoke screen. Intelligence agencies from lots of countries, especially ours, are harvesting your data from everywhere all the time,” Kennedy continued. “TikTok isn’t even majority Chinese-owned, and the company agreed to put its data behind a U.S. firewall. The Biden administration rejected that deal.”
“Congress and the administration don’t understand that TikTok is an entrepreneurial platform for thousands of American young people. They want to screw them over just so they can pretend to be tough on China,” he added.
Former President Donald Trump has also vocalized criticism of the legislation, writing on Truth Social, “Just so everyone knows, especially the young people, Crooked Joe Biden is responsible for banning TikTok.”
Earlier this week, American Faith reported President Biden signed legislation that compels TikTok’s parent company to sell its operations in the U.S. or face a ban. The measure is part of a $95 billion package that includes foreign aid for Ukraine and Israel.
Upon signing, TikTok will not vanish immediately from users’ devices. The law grants the parent company, Bytedance, a nine-month window to find a buyer, with a possible three-month extension if a sale is underway. Estimates value TikTok in the U.S. between $50 billion and $100 billion.
Lawmakers have stipulated that the parent company must relinquish control of the algorithm, which drives the platform’s content recommendation system based on user interests. TikTok boasts 170 million users in the U.S. Lawmakers have long worried that Chinese authorities could access user data or manipulate content on the app.
Critics of the bill argue that the Chinese government could access data through other means and assert that the U.S. has not presented evidence that TikTok shares user information with Chinese authorities.
