TikTok isn’t the only party asking the Supreme Court to overturn the federal law that could see the app sold or banned later this month. A group of eight TikTok creators also sued the government over the law, saying it violated their First Amendment rights.
The creators have argued that they have not found the same success on platforms like Instagram or YouTube. They include Brian Firebaugh, a first-generation rancher in Texas, and Paul Tran, who runs a skin care brand with his wife. Other plaintiffs include Christopher Townsend, a hip-hop artist who shares biblical quizzes with his followers, and Kiera Spann, an advocate for sexual-assault survivors.
Mr. Firebaugh, who has more than 400,000 TikTok followers, “would need to get a different job and pay for day care instead of raising his son at home” without income from TikTok’s fund for popular creators and sales of ranch products offered through the app, lawyers for creators wrote in a filing last year. Mr. Townsend, who has 2.6 million followers, “faces losing the platform on which he is able to express his beliefs and share his spirituality and music with the world,” the complaint said.
TikTok is paying the legal fees for the creators’ lawsuit. TikTok has pursued a similar legal strategy at least twice: once, in 2020, when a group of creators successfully challenged a federal ban, and again in Montana in 2023, when creators sued the state after it tried to ban the app.
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