Washington — A federal appeals court on Friday rejected TikTok’s attempt to delay a law banning the popular short-form video app from taking effect next month if its Chinese parent company does not sell its stake.
“Petitioners rely on their First Amendment claims to justify preliminary enjoining of the Act. As to these claims, this court has already unanimously concluded that the Act meets the requirements of the First Amendment, under a further review,” the U.S. Court order states. Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
TikTok is expected to ask the Supreme Court for its opinion, although it is unclear whether the court will agree to hear the case or make a decision before the law goes into effect on January 19.
The law, passed by Congress in April as part of a foreign aid package, gives TikTok nine months to sever ties with its parent company ByteDance or quickly lose access to app stores and services. web hosting in the United States. President Biden signed the billwhich includes the possibility of a one-time 90-day period granted by the president if a sale is underway by then.
But the Chinese government has vowed to block any potential sales of TikTok’s algorithm, which tailors content recommendations to each user. A new buyer would be forced to rebuild the algorithm that powers the app, which is unfeasible, according to lawyers for TikTok and ByteDance.
TikTok suffered a new setback on December 6 when the appeals court denied his attempt to repeal the lawconcluding that the U.S. government’s national security concerns about the Chinese government’s ability to use the app to spy on and covertly influence Americans were “compelling” and “well-founded.”
TikTok and ByteDance then asked the appeals court to temporarily block the law from taking effect pending a review by the Supreme Court. A pause would also give the Trump administration time to act, the companies said in their Dec. 9 court filing. President-elect Donald Trump spearheaded efforts to ban TikTok during his first term, but has since said he would “save” the app.
Allowing the law to take effect, even for a short time, would be detrimental to the platform, the filing asserts. TikTok estimates it could lose a third of its daily users in the United States in the first month following a shutdown. In the United States, around 170 million people use TikTok.
But the Justice Department rejected the claim that TikTok would suffer “immediate harm” if the law was not suspended. In his response, he noted that Americans who have already downloaded the app will be able to continue using it after January 19, even though updates will no longer be available.
On Friday, leaders of the House China Committee sent letters to Google and Apple telling them to be prepared to remove TikTok from their app stores by January 19.
Rep. John Moolenaar of Michigan, the committee’s Republican chairman, and Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois, the panel’s top Democrat, also sent a letter to TikTok urging it to sell the app.
“Congress acted decisively to defend U.S. national security and protect U.S. TikTok users from the Chinese Communist Party. We urge TikTok to immediately proceed with a qualified divestiture,” they wrote.
