A US federal appeals court on Friday upheld a law requiring China-based ByteDance to sell its popular short video app TikTok or face a ban in the United States by early next year.
The decision is a victory for the Justice Department and opponents of the Chinese-owned app and a devastating blow to ByteDance. The decision now raises the possibility of an unprecedented ban on the social media app used by 170 million Americans in just six weeks.
This decision is expected to be appealed in the Supreme Court.
Supporters of free speech immediately criticized the decision. The American Civil Liberties Union said it sets a “flawed and dangerous precedent.”
“Banning TikTok clearly violates the First Amendment rights of millions of Americans who use the app to express themselves and communicate with people around the world,” said Patrick Toomey, deputy director of the ACLU’s National Security Project. Let’s use.”
But the appeals court said the law “was the culmination of broad, bipartisan action by Congress and successive presidents. It was carefully crafted to deal with the control of only one foreign adversary, and it was part of a broader effort to counter Part was the national security threat posed by the PRC (People’s Republic of China).
US appeals court judges Sri Srinivasan, Neomi Rao and Douglas Ginsburg considered legal challenges brought by TikTok and users against the law, which would require ByteDance to divest or sell TikTok’s US assets or face sanctions on January 19. Gives time up to.
The decision — unless the Supreme Court overturns it — puts TikTok’s fate in the hands of first President Joe Biden over whether to grant a 90-day extension to the Jan. 19 deadline to force a sale, and then the president. -Elect Donald Trump, who will take office on January 20. But it’s unclear whether ByteDance can meet the heavy burden of showing it has made significant progress toward the divestitures needed to accelerate expansion.
Trump, who unsuccessfully tried to ban TikTok during his first term in 2020, had said before the November presidential election that he would not allow a ban on TikTok.
TikTok said it hoped the Supreme Court would overturn the appeals court’s decision on First Amendment grounds.
“The Supreme Court has an established historical record of protecting Americans’ right to free speech, and we expect they will do the same on this important constitutional issue,” TikTok said in a statement. American people.”
The Justice Department had no immediate comment on the decision.
The decision leaves intact a law that gives the US government broad powers to ban other foreign-owned apps that could raise concerns about the collection of Americans’ data. In 2020, Trump also tried to ban Tencent-owned WeChat, but was blocked by courts.
Shares of the Meta platform, which competes against TikTok in online advertising, hit an intraday record high after the decision, up more than 3%. Google parent Alphabet, whose YouTube video platform also competes with TikTok, rose more than 1% after the decision.
Tiktok is getting banned
The court acknowledged that its decision would result in a ban on TikTok on January 19 without an extension from Biden.
“As a result, TikTok’s millions of users will need to find alternative means of communication,” the court said, which was due to China’s “hybrid commercial threat to U.S. national security, not to the U.S. government, which has been using TikTok for many years.” Was associated with.” process in an effort to find alternative solutions.”
The opinion was written by Ginsburg, an appointee of President Ronald Reagan, and was also joined by Rao, who was nominated to the bench by Trump, and Srinivasan, who was appointed by President Barack Obama.
The Justice Department says that under Chinese ownership, TikTok poses a serious national security threat due to access to vast personal data of Americans, claiming that China could secretly manipulate the information that Americans access to TikTok. Consume through.
US officials have also warned that TikTok’s management is beholden to the Chinese government, which could force the company to share the data of its US users.
TikTok has denied that it has or will ever share US user data, and the lawsuit accuses US lawmakers of pursuing “speculative” concerns.
TikTok and ByteDance argue that the law is unconstitutional and violates Americans’ free speech rights. They call it “a radical departure from this country’s tradition of advocating an open Internet.”
ByteDance, backed by Sequoia Capital, Susquehanna International Group, KKR & Co and General Atlantic, among others, was valued at $268 billion in December 2023, when it offered to buy back about $5 billion worth of shares from investors, according to Reuters. Was told then.
The law prevents app stores like Apple and Alphabet’s Google from offering TikTok and prevents Internet hosting services from supporting TikTok until ByteDance sells TikTok by the deadline.
Apple and Google did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
In a concurring opinion, Srinivasan acknowledged that the decision would have major implications, saying, “170 million Americans use TikTok to create and watch all kinds of free expression and connect with each other and the world. And then “Also, partly because of the platform’s broad reach, Congress and several Presidents determined that separating it from (China’s) control was necessary to protect our national security.”
He further stated that “Because the record demonstrates that Congress’s decision was considered, was consistent with long-standing regulatory practice, and was devoid of an institutional purpose to suppress particular messages or views, we set it aside.” “Are not in a position to do so.”
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
