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A federal appeals court on Friday upheld a law requiring TikTok’s Chinese parent company to sell the popular app or face a U.S. ban.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled that the law did not violate the First Amendment, as TikTok had argued. The decision brings the ban one step closer to reality, with just over a month left until it goes into effect.
“The First Amendment exists to protect free speech in the United States, where the government protects that freedom from foreign adversaries and allows those adversaries to collect data about people in the United States. “For these reasons, the petition is denied,” the court wrote.
The anti-sale bill was quickly passed by Congress earlier this year amid bipartisan national security concerns about the app’s China-based parent company ByteDance. President Joe Biden signed it in April.
The law gives ByteDance about nine months (until January 19) to withdraw from TikTok or face a ban from U.S. networks and app stores. However, Biden may choose to give the company a 90-day extension.
TikTok and ByteDance filed a lawsuit in May seeking to block the law, along with several content creators, arguing that a sale would be virtually impossible. As a result, the law effectively bans TikTok across the United States, which they argue is unconstitutional.
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But the Biden administration maintains that the Chinese government can use TikTok to “achieve its overriding objective of undermining U.S. interests.”
The court sided with the Biden administration, finding that the “significant” impact of the TikTok ban was justified by the government’s national security concerns.
“Unless TikTok conducts a qualified sale by January 19, 2025, or unless the President grants a 90-day extension based on progress toward a qualified sale, the platform will remain effectively closed, at least for some time. “is no longer available in the United States,” the court said. I wrote this in an opinion piece on Friday.
“As a result, TikTok’s millions of users will need to find alternative communication media.” “That burden is due to China’s hybrid commercial threat to U.S. national security, not the U.S. government’s fault for engaging with TikTok through a multi-year process to find alternative solutions.”
Despite the administration’s victory, the future of the anti-divestment law remains uncertain as President-elect Donald Trump is scheduled to take office.
After launching a similar effort to ban TikTok during his first term, President Trump has changed his stance on the app, saying a ban would empower Facebook and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. did.
During his campaign campaign in September, the former president called on Americans to vote for him to “save TikTok.”
With President Trump’s new term just around the corner, TikTok CEO Hsu Chu reached out to Trump’s ally, tech mogul Elon Musk, for insight into the incoming administration. The Wall Street Journal reported.
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