TikTok’s Tougher Legal Fight

Demonstrators hold signs in support of TikTok outside the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. in March. Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images.

Kaya Yurieff

I’ll be in Washington on Monday, when TikTok’s legal team will argue that a new law that could shut down the app in January is an infringement on Americans’ freedom of speech. Even as the deadline to this ban gets closer, I’ve been surprised by how unfazed many people, from TikTok staff to the company’s business partners and creators, have been about the situation.

That’s because this has been a perennial threat hanging over the app for the past four years, ever since former President Donald Trump moved to ban it—an effort that the courts blocked. As my colleague Juro and I reported on Tuesday, parent company ByteDance is confident it can drag out the current legal process by getting an injunction order, which would prevent the law from going into effect early next year.