Texas cattle rancher suing U.S. government over new law that could ban TikTok

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Brian Firebaugh, a TikTok content creator and the owner of a cattle ranch near Waco, is suing the U.S. government over a new law that could ban the social media platform in the U.S.

Brian Firebaugh is the owner of 4F Ranch in Hubbard, near Waco. He and his wife, April, have been running their ranch since 2015.

He is one of eight TikTok creators that are part of a federal lawsuit filed after President Joe Biden signed a law last month that bans TikTok unless it’s sold within a year. Most Texas members of Congress were in favor of the new law, according to the Texas Standard.

Firebaugh, who is known as “Cattle Guy” on TikTok, said he struggled to get his business to take off until he started posting videos on the popular social media app.

“We really struggled on the other social media platforms, and I had a friend that suggested. .. ‘Facebook’s dead, Instagram’s prime was five years ago. You need to move to TikTok,” Firebaugh said. “And he suggested I just hit record.”

Now, Firebaugh has almost half a million followers. He said his growing audience helped him get recognized by Netflix for a reality TV game show called “The Trust.”

For him, TikTok played a crucial role for his success. He said it’s also become a way to educate people about agriculture.

“There are other people out there in this world that are actively talking about [agriculture] in a negative way,” Firebaugh said. “And if we’re not there talking about it in the positive aspects of it, all people are going to hear is negative. And it will die.”

According to the lawsuit, there are around 170 million Americans who create, publish, view, interact with and share videos on TikTok. Creators like Firebaugh are concerned about their First Amendment rights and how the potential ban can affect their businesses.

TikTok has a China-based parent company, ByteDance. Lawmakers have claimed the app’s connection to China makes it a national security threat.

“If this was truly a concern about our data, there would be sweeping laws to protect our data across all social media platforms and not just strictly trying to ban one,” Firebaugh said. “That seems suspect to me.”

Legal experts have also suggested that a TikTok ban without supporting evidence violates the First Amendment. Earlier this year, TikTok introduced “Project Texas,” a roughly $1.5 billion project to store U.S. data in Texas.

The lawsuit is being handled by Davis Wright Tremaine LLP, which has a focus on media and entertainment and technology. The same company worked with NPR in 2022 to sue the FBI for documents on the George Floyd protests.

When it comes to privacy concerns for other technology-related companies, Google reached a settlement in federal court earlier this year to delete the browsing history of millions of people who used their ‘incognito’ mode. And a European watchdog fined Meta, the parent company of Facebook, for $1.3 billion over privacy concerns last year.

“I’ve never been involved in a lawsuit before. I’ve never actively sued the federal government before,” Firebaugh said. “… I’m just hoping it’ll wake up some politicians.”