(Al Jazeera Media Network) A United States federal appeals court has upheld a law requiring Chinese-based ByteDance to divest itself of its popular short video app TikTok in the US by early next year or face a ban.
The decision is a complete win for the Department of Justice and opponents of the app, and a devastating blow to ByteDance. The ruling increases the possibility of an unprecedented ban in just six weeks on a social media app used by 170 million Americans.
The ruling is likely to be appealed to the Supreme Court.
Free speech advocates immediately criticized the decision. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said it sets a “flawed and dangerous precedent.”
“Banning TikTok blatantly violates the First Amendment rights of millions of Americans who use this app to express themselves and communicate with people around the world,” said Patrick Toomey, deputy director of the ACLU’s National Security Project.
The appeals court said the law “was the culmination of extensive, bipartisan action by the Congress and by successive presidents. It was carefully crafted to deal only with control by a foreign adversary, and it was part of a broader effort to counter a well-substantiated national security threat posed by the PRC [People’s Republic of China].”
US appeals court Judges Sri Srinivasan, Neomi Rao and Douglas Ginsburg considered the legal challenges brought by TikTok and users against the law that gives ByteDance until January 19 to sell or divest itself of TikTok’s US assets or face a ban.
Unless the Supreme Court reverses it, the decision puts TikTok’s fate in the hands first of President Joe Biden on whether to grant a 90-day extension of the January 19 deadline to force a sale and then to President-elect Donald Trump, who takes office on January 20. But it is not clear whether ByteDance could meet the heavy burden to show it had made significant progress towards a divestiture needed to trigger the extension.
Trump, who unsuccessfully tried to ban TikTok in 2020 during his first term, said before the November presidential election that he would not allow the ban on TikTok.
TikTok said it expected the Supreme Court would reverse the appeals court 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 just that on this important constitutional issue,” TikTok said in a statement, adding the law will result “in outright censorship of the American people.”
There was no immediate comment from the Justice Department.
The court acknowledged its decision would lead to TikTok’s ban on January 19 without an extension from Biden.
“Consequently, TikTok’s millions of users will need to find alternative media of communication,” the court said, which was because of China’s “hybrid commercial threat to US national security, not to the US Government, which engaged with TikTok through a multi-year process in an effort to find an alternative solution.”
https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2024/12/6/us-appeals-court-upholds-tiktok-law-forcing-its-sale
