TikTok chief exec Shou Zi Chew has said that he expects to win a legal challenge to block legislation that would outlaw the social media app in the US.

President Joe Biden signed legislation into law on Wednesday that gives TikTok’s parent company ByteDance nine months to sell the short-form video app or face a ban. As such, the White House has set a deadline of 19 January for a sale, but the deadline could be extended by three months if ByteDance is determined to be making progress towards a sale.

The TikTok boss however posted a determined video on the social media site, stating “the facts and the Constitution are on our side and we expect to prevail again."

White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre said that the Biden administration is not in favour of a ban, and instead insisted that any action is about “PRC (People’s Republic of China) ownership”.

The US government under previous president Donald Trump attempted to force divestment of the company’s US business. This ban was however thwarted in the US courts, and the company has since continued to operate as a Chinese-owned entity. Trump has since, on the campaign trail for the 2024 election, taken a softer stance and has politicked that the Democrats are the ones responsible for a potential ban.

Senator Marco Rubio, a former rival to Trump in the 2016 presidential race, upon the legislation’s pass through the Senate said that allowing the “Chinese Communist party to control one of the most popular apps in America … was dangerously shortsighted” and described the ban on the platform used by 170 million Americans as “a good move” for the country.

The law, which was attached as a measure to a bill which provides $95 billion in aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, provides broad powers for the White House to ban or force the sale of other foreign-owned apps – a measure which Democratic senator Ron Wyden said “could be abused by a future administration to violate Americans’ First Amendment rights."

Democratic Senator Ed Markey echoed these sentiments, adding: "Censorship is not who we are as a people. We should not downplay or deny this trade-off."

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