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A U.S. appeals court on Friday upheld a law requiring TikTok owner ByteDance to sell its platform or face a U.S. ban next year, dealing a major blow to the video app’s Chinese company. .
The law, signed by US President Joe Biden earlier this year, means that if the TikTok app is not sold by parent company ByteDance by January 19, 2025, the day before Donald Trump takes office as president, it will no longer be available in the country. is ordered to be prohibited.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said the government’s national security “justification” for the law was “persuasive.”
The legislation gets at the heart of the national security issue surrounding the wildly popular app and has strong bipartisan support in Congress.
U.S. officials say ByteDance, under Chinese law, shared the personal information of TikTok’s 170 million U.S. users with authorities in Beijing and used the app’s algorithms and moderation to spread propaganda and misinformation. They claim that they may be forced to use the The US Department of Justice claimed earlier this year that some of TikTok’s US user data was stored in China.
But the law faces an uncertain political future. During his pre-reelection campaign, with both parties eyeing the app as a key part of their vote-getting strategies, Trump said he opposed banning TikTok and promised to “save” the app.
TikTok and ByteDance sued the U.S. government in May to block the bill, saying it is unconstitutional and violates First Amendment protections for free speech. TikTok denies that the Chinese government controls the app or has handed over any data to the Chinese government. The company’s lawyers also argued that concerns about propaganda on the app should be addressed through disclosure requirements rather than a blanket ban on sales.
TikTok argued that the sale was “unfeasible” because much of the U.S. government’s evidence was classified, meaning it had no chance to rebut its claims.
The Chinese government has publicly said it will not allow ByteDance to transfer the platform’s recommendation algorithms and has export control laws in place to prevent such spinoffs.
Currently, TikTok’s fate in the United States remains uncertain.
TikTok will likely appeal to the Supreme Court and seek a court order temporarily halting the law from taking effect pending further rulings. Biden could also extend the ban or divestment deadline by 90 days.
Before his reelection, Trump said he would not ban TikTok when he returned to the White House to maintain “competition” in a market dominated by Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta, but called Meta the next president’s “enemy.” It is called. people”.
It’s unclear exactly how he will save the app as promised. Experts suggested he could direct Congress to repeal the law or pressure the Justice Department not to enforce it.
