TikTok plans to take the fight to the courts if a US bill that calls for its Chinese parent company ByteDance to divest its ownership stake in the app is signed into law, Bloomberg reported on Monday, citing a company memo to its US employees.
"At the stage that the bill is signed, we will move to the courts for a legal challenge," Michael Beckerman, TikTok’s head of public policy for the Americas, stated in the memo. "We’ll continue to fight … This is the beginning, not the end of this long process."
Beckerman called the bill a "clear violation" of the First Amendment rights of the short video social media app’s estimated 170 million users in the United States.
On Saturday, the House passed legislation that would require ByteDance to divest its ownership stake in TikTok or else the app would be banned in the United States. The bill is expected to be promptly passed by the Senate and signed into law by US President Joe Biden.