TikTok, a short-form video app, is targeted by the Trump administration because it is owned by a Chinese tech company.
Angela Lang / CNET
TikTok’s US employees plan to file a lawsuit challenging a Trump administration executive order they say it would make it illegal for their employer to pay them.
Last week, President Donald Trump issued an executive order excluding all U.S. transactions with ByteDance, the Chinese company that owns TikTok, and its affiliates. The language of the order is broad, so it is unclear if it would hinder TikTok from paying its employees. The Trump administration did not respond to questions about how the order would affect TikTok employees.
The order, which would take effect September 20, would effectively ban the short-form video app from trading in the U.S. if ByteDance does not sell TikTok. Microsoft has acknowledged that it is negotiating a deal to buy TikTok service in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Negotiations could be completed by Sept. 15, which is before the deadline of the executive order.
Mike Godwin, a leading lawyer for Internet rights, said in a tweet Thursday that he is one of the lawyers working on a lawsuit against the Trump administration.
“I believe the U.S. government, with its exaggerated executive mandate, has jeopardized the constitutional rights of employees, including the right to pay,” he tweeted.
I’m proud to be one of the lawyers now working on this case to defend the rights of TikTok employees. I believe that the U.S. government, with its exaggerated executive mandate, has jeopardized the constitutional rights of employees, including the right to pay. https://t.co/rQG2hZeX02
– Mike Godwin (@sfmnemonic) August 13, 2020
In an interview, Godwin said that the executive order violated the Fifth and 14th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, which states that no “life, liberty or property is conferred without proper process of law.” The lawsuit could be filed at the end of next week.
“It’s basically a claim for litigation, but there are some claims for employment rights that may also be relevant,” said Godwin, who works with the Blackstone Law Group in New York. “We just want to make sure we check all the boxes.”
Godwin was hired by Patrick Ryan, a TikTok employee who started a GoFundMe campaign to raise $ 30,000 to “file a dismissal so that a court can order the government to change the order so that TikTok can still hire employees” to pay.” On the GoFundMe site and in a TikTok video, Ryan said the order would mean 1,500 ByteDance and TikTok employees would lose their payment traffic on September 20th. More than $ 11,200 has been raised for the campaign.
TikTok is also working on a separate lawsuit against the Trump administration that is also expected to claim the order is unconstitutional, NPR reported. The lawsuit will be filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California, according to the report.
TikTok said it was not involved in the potential lawsuit for employee or coordinating activity with the group. The company added that it respects “the rights of employees to engage in combined activity to seek a fair trial.”
In a blog post last week, TikTok said it was “shocked” by Trump’s executive order and that the order was “issued without any process.”
The Trump administration’s executive order comes after India banned TikTok and dozens of other Chinese apps over concerns about national security. In the order, the Trump administration says the user data collected by TikTok “threatens to give the Chinese Communist Party access to personal and proprietary information of Americans – possibly China could track the locations of federal employees and contractors, build dossiers of personal information for blackmail, and remote corporate espionage. ”
TikTok has said that US user data is not stored in China and that it would not transfer user data to the Chinese government even if it asked for it.
The Trump administration also issued a separate executive order banning messaging app WeChat in the US.
On Thursday, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany defended the executive orders during a press release.
“The administration is working to protect the American people from all cyber-killers,” she said. “These apps collect significant amounts of private data about users, and such information can be accessed and used by the People’s Republic of China. TikTok has a documented history of free speech censorship to comply with Chinese Communist Party propaganda, and we take the data of Americans very seriously. “
When asked about the executive orders, Trump said the U.S. government wanted “total security.”
“We do not want any information about China,” Trump said.
CNET’s Oscar Gonzalez contributed to this report.
