WASHINGTON: TikTok and its Chinese parent company ByteDance said on Tuesday they filed suit in US federal court seeking to block a law signed by President Joe Biden that would force the divestiture of the short video app used by 170 million Americans or ban its use.

The companies said they filed a lawsuit in the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia arguing that the law violates the US Constitution on a number of grounds, including running afoul of First Amendment free speech protections. The law, signed by Biden on April 24, gives China’s ByteDance until Jan. 19 to sell TikTok or face a ban.

TikTok made a copy of its lawsuit available to Reuters.

The lawsuit said the divestiture “is simply not possible: not commercially, not technologically, not legally.