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A federal appeals court upheld a law that could lead to a ban TikTok in a few short months, delivering a resounding defeat popular social media platform because it is fighting for survival in the USA
That could lead to a potential showdown between the government and the Supreme Court application – and the president-elect Donald Trump would they will probably have to choose a side after making conflicting statements about the ban throughout his political career.
Trump, who tried to ban TikTok during his first term and whose Justice Department would have to enforce the law, said during the presidential campaign that he was now against banning TikTok and would work to “save” the social media platform.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia District ruled that the law, which requires TikTok to sever ties with its China-based parent company ByteDance or be banned by mid-January, is constitutional, rejecting TikTok’s challenge that the statute violated the First Amendment and was unfair platform targeting. TikTok and ByteDance an appeal to the Supreme Court is expected.
“The First Amendment exists to protect free speech in the United States,” the court’s opinion said. “Here, the Government acted solely to protect that freedom from an adversary nation and to limit that adversary’s ability to collect information about people in the United States.”
The legislation, signed into law by President Joe Biden in April, culminated a years-long saga in Washington over the short video-sharing app, which the government considers a national security threat because of its ties to China.
The US has expressed concern that TikTok collects vast amounts of user data, including sensitive information about viewing habits, that could fall into the hands of the Chinese government through coercion. Officials also warned that the proprietary algorithm that drives what users see on the app is vulnerable to manipulation by Chinese authorities, who can use it to shape content on the platform in ways that are hard to detect.
However, a significant portion of the government’s information in this case was redacted and withheld from the public, as well as from the two companies.
TikTok, which sued the government over the law in May, has long denied Beijing could use it to spy on or manipulate Americans. Its lawyers correctly pointed out that the U.S. has not provided evidence showing that the company handed over user data to the Chinese government or manipulated content to benefit Beijing in the U.S. They also argued that the law was based on future risks, which the Justice Department said was partly prompted by unspecified action it claims the two companies took in the past because of requests from the Chinese government.
Friday’s decision came after an appeals court panel heard oral arguments in September.
Some legal experts said at the time that it was difficult to read the tea leaves about how the justices would rule.
At the court hearing that lasted more than two hoursThe commission — made up of two Republican and one Democrat-appointed justices — appears to be grappling with how TikTok’s foreign ownership affects its rights under the Constitution and how far the government can go to reduce potential foreign influence on the foreign-owned platform.
The justices pressed Daniel Tenny, a lawyer for the Justice Department, about the First Amendment implications of the case. But they also expressed some skepticism about TikTok’s arguments, challenging the company’s lawyer — Andrew Pincus — on whether any First Amendment rights prevent the government from curtailing a powerful company that is subject to the laws and influence of a foreign adversary.
In parts of their questions about TikTok’s ownership, the justices cited wartime precedent that allows the U.S. to limit foreign ownership of broadcast licenses and asked whether the arguments made by TikTok would apply if the U.S. were involved in a war.
To ease concerns about the company’s owners, TikTok says it has invested more than $2 billion in strengthening user data protections in the US.
The company also claims that broader government concerns could have been addressed in a draft agreement it submitted to the Biden administration more than two years ago during talks between the two sides. He blames the government for abandoning further negotiations on the agreement, which the Ministry of Justice claims is insufficient.
The lawyers of these two companies claim that it is impossible to sell the platform commercially and technologically. They also say any sale of TikTok without the desired algorithm — the platform’s secret sauce that Chinese authorities would likely block under any sale plan — would turn the U.S. version of TikTok into an island cut off from other global content.
Still, some investors, including Trump’s former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and billionaire Frank McCourt, have expressed interest in buying the platform. Both said earlier this year they were launching a consortium to buy TikTok’s US business.
This week, a spokesman for McCourt’s Project Liberty, which aims to protect online privacy, said unnamed bidders had informally committed more than $20 billion in capital to their offering.
TikTok’s lawsuit is joined by another lawsuit filed by several content creators — for which the company is covering legal fees — and a third filed on behalf of conservative creators working with a nonprofit called BASED Politics Inc.
If TikTok appeals and the courts continue to uphold the law, it would be up to Trump’s Justice Department to enforce it and fine any potential violators. The penalties would apply to app stores that would be banned from offering TikTok and internet hosting services that would be banned from supporting it.