TikTok hires legal expert Carl Szabo to fight US ban

TikTok has hired a powerful new voice to represent its interests as it steps up its fight against a congressional ban on the app.

The Chinese-owned video-sharing platform appears to be preparing for a lengthy legal battle that could go all the way to the Supreme Court after President Joe Biden signed a law in April that would require the platform to be sold to a U.S. company within nine months.

Carl Szabo, longtime general counsel and policy expert at NetChoice – one of the leading technology lobbying groups in Washington – is leaving the company to join TikTok's government relations department, where the company is trying to make its voice heard in court.

“It is certainly a sign that the company expects the fight to end up in the Supreme Court and is preparing for it given its poor performance. [so far] in the D.C. Circuit,” Joel Thayer, a technology policy attorney and president of the Digital Progress Institute, told The Post.

Calls for a ban on TikTok first came from politicians concerned about privacy and worried about what information the app sends about its users to the Chinese Communist Party and how it might be used.

“TikTok is still trying to deny the reality that a law passed by Congress bans them – they will throw anything and everything at it with unlimited money from China,” added Nathan Leamer, a former FCC policy adviser and CEO of Fixed Gear Strategies.

“Given that our parent company is predominantly owned by global institutional investors and our employees – including thousands here in the U.S. – this comment is completely ridiculous and downright false,” a TikTok spokesperson told the Post.

NetChoice, a right-wing tech lobbying group that works with a variety of technology companies, including Amazon, Netflix and Meta, had represented TikTok until immediately after the ban, at which point it kicked the social media giant off its list.

Szabo has been instrumental in challenging laws targeting tech companies, warning earlier this year that “lawsuits are coming” after California passed a law protecting younger users, according to a report.

Szabo's departure was announced Thursday in a statement from NetChoice President Steve DelBianco: “I am deeply grateful to Carl for helping NetChoice grow from a two-man team into America's leading technology trade association over the past 14 years.

“Thanks to Carl’s commitment to advancing our mission, NetChoice now has a world-class government affairs team and a renowned litigation center to advance our cases.”

Szabo did not respond to The Post's request for comment.

TikTok has filed an appeal with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to overturn the law, which would force either the company's divestment from Chinese parent ByteDance or a ban on the app.

“For the first time in history, Congress has specifically targeted a specific U.S. speaker and banned his free speech and the free speech of 170 million Americans,” argued TikTok attorney Andrew Pincus.

The law is scheduled to take effect on January 19, 2025, one day before the president's inauguration.