TikTok set to shut down app in US unless Supreme Court lifts ban: Report
TikTok plans to shut down its US operations on January 19 unless the Supreme Court overturns a federal ban linked to ByteDance’s failure to divest. President-elect Trump could issue an executive order to delay enforcement.
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TikTok plans to shut down U.S. operations of its social media app, used by 170 million Americans, on Sunday, when a federal ban is set to take effect, people familiar with the matter said Wednesday, citing a last-minute exemption. Except. Washington Post President-elect Donald Trump, whose term begins a day after the restrictions begin, is reported to be considering issuing an executive order to suspend implementation of the shutdown for 60 to 90 days. The newspaper did not explain how Trump could legally do this.
The law, signed in April, calls for a ban on new TikTok downloads on the Apple or Google app stores if Chinese parent company ByteDance fails to sell the site.
Users who have downloaded TikTok will theoretically still be able to use the app, except the law also bans US companies from providing services to enable its distribution, maintenance or updates starting on Sunday. Stops. The Trump transition team had no immediate comment. Trump has said that after taking office he should get time to find a “political solution” to the issue.
“TikTok is a great platform in itself,” Mike Waltz, Trump’s incoming national security adviser, told Fox News on Wednesday. “We’re going to have to find a way to preserve it and protect people’s data.”
A White House official said reuters President Joe Biden on Wednesday has no plans to intervene to stop the ban in his final days in office if the Supreme Court fails to act and said Biden would seek a credible plan to divest TikTok from ByteDance. In the absence of legal action, they are unable to intervene. US Senator Ed Markey on Wednesday sought unanimous consent to extend by 270 days the deadline for ByteDance to sell TikTok, but Republican Senator Tom Cotton blocked the motion.
If it is banned, TikTok plans to have users who try to open the app see a pop-up message directing them to a website with information about the ban, said the people, who requested anonymity. While saying, because the matter is not public.
“We went dark. Essentially, the platform shut down,” TikTok lawyer Noel Francisco told the Supreme Court last week.
Sources said the company also plans to give users the option to download all their data so that they can have a record of their personal information. The US Supreme Court is currently deciding whether to uphold the law and ban TikTok on Sunday, overturn the law, or put the law on hold to give the court more time to decide.
The company said in a court filing last month that shutting down TikTok in the US could make it unavailable to users in many other countries, as hundreds of service providers in the US are struggling to make the platform available to TikTok users around the world. Help – and can’t. Now do this from Sunday. TikTok said in court that filing an order was necessary “to avoid disruption of services to millions of TikTok users outside the United States.”
TikTok had said the ban would eventually render the app unusable, noting in the filing that “data centers will almost certainly conclude that they can no longer store TikTok code, content, or data”.
Sources said the shutdown is aimed at protecting TikTok service providers from legal liability and making it easier to resume operations if President-elect Donald Trump chooses to roll back any restrictions.
One of the sources said the closure of such services does not require long planning, given that most operations are continuing as normal as of this week. If the ban is later lifted, TikTok would be able to restore service to US users in a relatively short period of time, the sources said. TikTok and its Chinese parent company ByteDance did not immediately respond. reuters‘Request for comment. US Tech Publications Information The news was first given late on Tuesday night.
Privately held ByteDance is about 60 percent owned by institutional investors such as BlackRock and General Atlantic, while its founders and employees each hold a 20 percent stake. It has more than 7,000 employees in the United States.
President Joe Biden signed a law last April that will require ByteDance to sell its US assets by January 19, or face nationwide sanctions. Last week, the Supreme Court seemed inclined to uphold the law, despite calls by Trump and lawmakers to extend the deadline. TikTok and ByteDance have, at a minimum, sought to delay implementation of the law, which they say violates the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment protection against interference with free speech by the government. TikTok said in a court filing last month that if the ban lasted for a month, one-third of its 170 million US users would lose access to the platform.
