TikTok and its parent company, ByteDance, filed a petition with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on Tuesday. The petition challenges a law President Joe Biden signed in late April that would force the sale or ban of the video-sharing app within a year.

As Politico reports, the companies argue the law violates the First Amendment rights of TikTok’s 170 million American users. They claim the law shuts down the platform based on “speculative and analytically flawed concerns about data security and content manipulation.” 

The filing states, “For the first time in history, Congress has enacted a law that subjects a single, named speech platform to a permanent, nationwide ban.”

TikTok and ByteDance request the court declare the law unconstitutional and block Attorney General Merrick Garland from enforcing it. They contend Congress did not provide evidence that TikTok poses risks to data security or spreading foreign propaganda that could justify the law.

The Biden administration and Congress assert a Chinese national security law allows Beijing to demand U.S. user data from ByteDance. They also claim China disseminates propaganda via TikTok’s algorithms. A March report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence stated China utilized TikTok to influence the 2022 U.S. elections.

TikTok denies being a security threat, stating its parent company is not controlled by the Chinese Communist Party. CEO Shou Zi Chew said in January that TikTok invested $2 billion in safety measures across the platform. In 2022, TikTok launched a project storing U.S.-based data on Oracle’s American cloud servers.

China’s government states it “firmly opposes” a forced sale of TikTok and would not permit exporting the app’s algorithm, which is considered its most valuable component.

This marks the third time TikTok has legally challenged a potential U.S. ban. Federal judges previously sided with TikTok’s arguments, blocking bans in Montana in 2022 and a Trump administration order in 2020.