U.S. responds to TikTok ban lawsuit

The federal government has responded to a lawsuit by TikTok and Chinese parent company ByteDance on a potential ban on the use of the popular social media app in the U.S. 

The companies brought the suit May 7 challenging a law signed by President Joe Biden that requires the Byte Dance to divest from TikTok or have face the ban.

The federal government has frames its law as a national security measure and rejects ByteDance's First Amendment arguments.

Failure to divest would result in the ban on the app – on which users post short-from videos – starting in January 2025.

The government responsed to the suit Friday.

The challengers argue that the ban "violates the First Amendment by singling out and shutting down the speech forum provided by the app," USA Today reported.

The government reframed the issue in its reply, arguing Chinese ownership could allow the Chinese Communist Party unprecedented access to Americans' personal information and pose a national security risk.

"The goal of this law is to ensure that young people, old people, and everyone in between is able to use the platform in a safe manner," the Justice Department said ahead of filing its response.

The government, the department also said, wants users to be "confident that their data is not ultimately going back to the Chinese government, and what they're watching is not being directed by or censored by the Chinese government."