A federal appeals court has voted unanimously to uphold a law that could ban TikTok in the United States unless the social network separates itself from Chinese ownership.
The decision comes seven months after TikTok filed a lawsuit against the federal government over the ban. Friday's appeals court ruling rejected TikTok's argument that the law violates the U.S. Constitution's promises to free speech and individual liberties.
“The First Amendment exists to protect free speech in the United States,” the court's opinion states. “Here, the government acted solely to protect its freedoms from a foreign adversary and to limit that adversary's ability to collect data about people within the United States.”
TikTok has indicated that it plans to appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court.
TikTok spokesperson Michael Hughes said in a statement to TechCrunch, “The Supreme Court has a historic record of protecting Americans' right to free speech, and we hope it will do the same on this important constitutional issue.” I hope that he will.” “Unfortunately, the TikTok ban was conceived and enforced based on inaccurate and flawed assumptions, resulting in blatant censorship of the American public.”
President Biden signed the ban into law in April, giving ByteDance a deadline of Jan. 19 to sell the app or face a ban. The bill follows four years of claims by the US government that TikTok's relationship with China poses a national security risk and exposes sensitive information about Americans to the Chinese government.
The ban is set to go into effect next month, but that doesn't necessarily mean the app will be removed from the iOS App Store and Google Play Store immediately, as ByteDance has indicated it intends to take the case to the Supreme Court.
Moreover, the situation could change if President-elect Donald Trump returns to office and chooses to intervene. During his campaign, Trump promised voters he would save the popular social media app if elected.
Kellyanne Conway, a former Trump adviser and campaign manager, recently told the Washington Post that Trump “highly values the breadth and influence of TikTok,” adding, “TikTok's 180 million There are many ways to hold China accountable other than alienating American users.”
Trump called for a ban on the app during his first term, but took a different approach in his 2024 campaign and is now concerned that banning TikTok would benefit meta. There is.
ByteDance said it would not sell its U.S. operations. Even if ByteDance wanted to sell the app, the Chinese government would likely block it because it would need to approve the transfer of TikTok's algorithm. Additionally, TikTok argued in its lawsuit that the sale is technically impossible because it would require transferring “millions of lines of software code” to the new owners.
This ban is not the first as TikTok has been banned in many countries including India, Senegal, Nepal, Afghanistan, Somalia, and Iran.
This story has been updated with a statement from TikTok.