Who Are the Creators Suing Over a TikTok Ban?

TikTok isn’t the one celebration asking the Supreme Courtroom to overturn the federal legislation that would see the app offered or successfully banned in the USA later this month. A gaggle of eight TikTok creators additionally sued the federal government over the legislation, saying it violated their First Modification rights.

The creators have argued that they haven’t discovered the identical success on platforms like Instagram or YouTube. They embrace Brian Firebaugh, a first-generation rancher in Texas, and Paul Tran, who runs a skincare model together with his spouse. Different plaintiffs embrace Christopher Townsend, a hip-hop artist who shares biblical quizzes together with his followers, and Kiera Spann, an advocate for sexual-assault survivors.

Mr. Firebaugh, who has greater than 400,000 TikTok followers, “would wish to get a special job and pay for day care as a substitute of elevating his son at house” with out revenue from TikTok’s fund for in style creators and gross sales of ranch merchandise provided by means of the app, legal professionals for creators wrote in a submitting final yr. Mr. Townsend, who has 2.6 million followers, “faces dropping the platform on which he is ready to specific his beliefs and share his spirituality and music with the world,” the criticism stated.

TikTok is paying the authorized charges for the creators’ lawsuit. TikTok has pursued an analogous authorized technique at the very least twice: as soon as, in 2020, when a gaggle of creators efficiently challenged a federal ban, and once more in Montana in 2023, when creators sued the state after it tried to ban the app.