TikTok on Monday asked the US Supreme Court to temporarily block legislation that would force its Chinese owner to sell the popular online video-sharing platform or shut down a month from now.
The law, signed by President Joe Biden in April, will block TikTok from US app stores and web hosting services unless its owner ByteDance separates the app by January 19.
TikTok asked to block the move while it challenges a lower court ruling that upheld the law, the Act to Protect Americans from Foreign Adversely Controlled Applications, with a possible appeal to the Supreme Court.
TikTok asked the country’s top court to take a decision by January 6.
“Congress has enacted a massive and unprecedented restriction on speech,” TikTok, which claims more than 170 million monthly US users, said in its petition filed in the Supreme Court.
TikTok said if the law goes into effect it would “shut down one of America’s most popular speech platforms one day before the presidential inauguration.”
It says, “In turn, the speech of the applicants and the many Americans who use the platform to communicate about politics, commerce, the arts, and other matters of public concern will be silenced.”
“Applicants – as well as the countless small businesses that rely on the platform – will also suffer substantial and irreparable monetary and competitive losses.”
The potential sanctions could strain US-China relations as Donald Trump prepares to take office on January 20.
The US president-elect has emerged as an unlikely TikTok ally amid concerns that a ban on the app would primarily benefit Facebook’s parent company Meta, owned by Mark Zuckerberg.
Trump’s stance mirrors conservative criticism of Meta for allegedly suppressing right-wing content, including the former president being banned from Facebook following the January 6, 2021 US Capitol riot by his supporters.
Trump’s support for TikTok is a contrast from his first term in office, when the Republican leader tried to ban the app over similar security concerns.
The US government alleges that TikTok allows Beijing to collect data and spy on users. It also states that the video hosting service is a means of spreading propaganda, although China and ByteDance strongly deny these claims.
Earlier this month, a three-judge U.S. Court of Appeals panel unanimously upheld the legal basis that separating TikTok from Chinese ownership is “necessary to protect our national security.”
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
