A federal appeals court on Friday upheld a law that could lead to a ban of TikTok as early as next month.
The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rejected TikTok’s request to overturn the law, which originally gave TikTok’s Chinese parent ByteDance until mid-January to sell the popular social media platform to a buyer deemed fit by US officials. TikTok had vowed to fight the law in court, claiming that it infringed on its free speech rights.
In its ruling, the court acknowledged that the ban would require TikTok’s millions of users “to find alternative media of communication” but is justified by the “hybrid commercial threat” China poses to US national security.
“The First Amendment exists to protect free speech in the United States. Here the Government acted solely to protect that freedom from a foreign adversary nation and to limit that adversary’s ability to gather data on people in the United States,” the court wrote.
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In response to the appeals court ruling, TikTok said that the ban would “silence the voices of over 170 million Americans here in the US and around the world on January 19th, 2025.”
Lawmakers in both political parties have long voiced concerns that TikTok, which has more than 150 million American users, could be a threat to national security and could be used by the Chinese government to spy on Americans or spread disinformation to further China’s agenda.
TikTok continues to deny those accusations. Ahead of votes in Congress earlier this year, TikTok rallied its US users, calling on them to urge their representatives on Capitol Hill to vote it down. But the measure ultimately passed by wide margins in both chambers of Congress.
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TikTok is expected to appeal Friday’s ruling to the US Supreme Court. The company also could get help from the incoming Trump administration. President-Elect Donald Trump, who had pushed for a ban during his first term, now says he’s no longer in favor of one.
“The Supreme Court has an established historical record of protecting Americans’ right to free speech, and we expect they will do just that on this important constitutional issue,” a TikTok spokesperson said in a statement Friday.
So what’s next for lawmakers and TikTok? Here’s what you need to know.
What does the law do?
The law is aimed at forcing ByteDance to sell TikTok to a buyer that American officials are OK with, as well as guaranteeing that ByteDance no longer has access to US user data or control over the TikTok algorithm that decides what videos American users see.
TikTok was given nine months to comply, hence the January deadline, at which point the government could require the removal of its app from US app stores. The president could grant a 90-day extension.
President Joe Biden, who signed the bill that established those requirements, remains in office until Inauguration Day on Jan. 20.
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What’s next?
After originally calling for a ban during his first presidency, Trump said in March on CNBC’s Squawk Box that though he still viewed the app as a danger to national security, he no longer thought it should be banned, saying that “there are a lot of young kids on TikTok who will go crazy without it.”
Trump added that banning TikTok would only boost the power of Facebook, which he referred to as an “enemy of the people.”
In September, Trump pledged to “save TikTok,” according to an Associated Press report.
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Who has opposed the TikTok ban?
Free speech and digital rights groups, as well as some security experts, have long opposed the idea of a ban, saying that singling out TikTok doesn’t do anything to solve the broader problems with social media as a whole.
Instead, they argue that lawmakers would be better off passing comprehensive digital privacy laws that would protect the personal information of Americans by stopping all social media companies from collecting it and selling it to data brokers.
