Top TikTok Lawyer Laughed About Possible US Ban: Report

• A best TikTok attorney was reportedly asked what the company would do if the application was banned in the US.
• The attorney laughed and dismissed the possibility, according to The Verge’s Command Line publication.
• Quite a few international locations banned TikTok on authorities products, and India has an outright ban on the app.

TikTok’s top rated law firm experienced an exciting response to an employee’s question requested through a latest all-hands meeting, The Verge’s Alex Heath stories.

At a latest assembly with TikTok’s US staff members, Erich Anderson, 1 of the firm’s legal professionals heading up conversations with the US authorities, was questioned about any contingency prepare if the application have been banned in the US, Heath wrote on Thursday for The Verge’s Command Line publication. Anderson responded to the problem with laughter and “outright dismissed the risk of a ban,” in accordance to the report.

The law firm, who was appointed as TikTok’s international basic counsel in 2020, reportedly then explained the enterprise was ready to lawfully challenge a ban if it came to that. But The Verge reports that Anderson failed to explore regardless of whether ByteDance would offer TikTok’s US small business — an strategy that the Biden administration has reportedly pushed as the only different to a ban.

TikTok, ByteDance, and Anderson did not respond to Insider’s requests for comment in advance of publication.

Anderson’s described remarks come two months soon after TikTok’s CEO Shou Zi Chew was grilled all through a Congressional hearing above protection concerns with the application. Politicians generally cut Chew’s responses small and consistently pushed for a overall ban or a pressured sale of the US application from its China-centered parent enterprise, ByteDance, citing info security concerns. Pursuing the hearing, the politicians were being afterwards mocked by lots of on the system for a perceived deficiency of technological information.

Some nations have previously imposed partial or full bans against the application. Australia a short while ago moved to ban TikTok on federal government units, a transfer that the United States, Canada, France, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom formerly made. India has had an outright ban on TikTok in place due to the fact 2020.

Still, experts have claimed a entire TikTok ban in the US is the very last doable option for the US. As the Biden administration reportedly carries on to weigh this conclusion, it is also considering the challenges of a ban — which includes possibly alienating youthful voters, authorities formerly told Insider’s Paayal Zaveri.