(AP Photo/Ted Shaffrey, File)
Roommates, it’s not looking too sweet for TikTok with 2025 around the corner! On Friday (December 6), a federal appeals court panel unanimously upheld a law that could lead to a ban on TikTok in a few weeks, per AP News.
This latest ruling is a blow to the app and its parent company’s fight to remain active in the U.S. More than one hundred million Americans use the video-based social networking app.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit denied TikTok’s petition to overturn the law. The legislation requires TikTok to break ties with its China-based parent company, ByteDance. If not, the U.S. will ban its use in the country by mid-January. In response, the company previously argued that the law violates its First Amendment rights. However, the appeals court served those claims in Friday’s ruling.
“The First Amendment exists to protect free speech in the United States,” Judge Douglas Ginsburg wrote in the court’s opnion. “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 appeals court paneltwo Republican and one Democrat-appointed judgeheard oral arguments in September. The hearing lasted more than two hours.On Friday, all three judges denied TikTok’s petition.
The next move forTikTok and ByteDance another plaintiff in the lawsuit is to appeal to the Supreme Court. However, it’s unclear whether the court will take up the case. Still, Michael Hughes, a spokesperson for the app, remains confident the platform will win the war despite losing this court battle.
“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,” Hughes said in a statement. “Unfortunately, the TikTok ban was conceived and pushed through based upon inaccurate, flawed, and hypothetical information, resulting in outright censorship of the American people.”
If the sale or ban law stays in place, Hughes said over 170 million Americans’ voices will be silenced come January 19th, 2025.
Lawyers for the two companies have also claimed it’s impossible to divide the platform commercially and technologically. They say any sale of TikTok without the coveted algorithm would disconnect the U.S. version from other global content.
Though the case is in the court system, it’s also possible Donald Trump could give the two companies a presidential helping hand. He tried to ban the app during his first term. However, during his presidential campaign, he shared that he’s now against the law.
While Trump initially spoke out against TT, President Joe Biden ultimately signed the terms into law in April. The app has long been the cause of tension in Washington over concerns about it being a national security threat.
The U.S. has said it’s concerned about TikTok collecting large amounts of user data. For example, there’s concern sensitive information like viewing habits could be studied and forced shared with the Chinese government. There’s also concern about the government’s influence over TikTok’s algorithm.
TikTok has previously denied that Beijing could use it to spy on or manipulate Americans. In May, it sued the U.S. Company attorneys have accurately pointed out that the U.S. hasn’t provided evidence to show that the company handed over user data to the Chinese government or manipulated content for Beijing’s benefit in the U.S. Additionally, they say the law is only based on future risks.
TikTok has already reportedly invested more than $2 billion to bolster protections around U.S. user data.
Associated Press reporter Haleluya Hadero contributed to this report.
