Appeals court denies TikTok’s bid to delay ban

Washington — A federal appeals court on Friday denied TikTok’s bid to delay a law from taking effect that will ban the popular short-form video app next month if its Chinese parent company does not sell its stake. 

“The petitioners rely upon their claims under the First Amendment to justify preliminarily enjoining the Act. As to those claims, this court has already unanimously concluded the Act satisfies the requirements of the First Amendment under heightened scrutiny,” the order from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said. 

TikTok is expected to ask the Supreme Court to weigh in, though it’s unclear if the court will agree to hear the case or make a decision before the law is applied on Jan. 19. 

The law, which was passed by Congress in April as part of a foreign assistance package, gave TikTok nine months to sever ties with its parent company ByteDance or lose access to app stores and web-hosting services in the U.S. President Biden quickly signed the bill into law, which includes the possibility of a one-time 90-day delay granted by the president if a sale is in progress by then. 

But the Chinese government has vowed to block a potential sale of TikTok’s algorithm which tailors content recommendations to each user. A new buyer would be forced to rebuild the algorithm that powers the app, which is unfeasible, according to TikTok and ByteDance’s lawyers. 

TikTok suffered another setback on Dec. 6 when the appeals court denied its bid to overturn the law, concluding that the U.S. government’s national security concerns about the Chinese government’s ability to use the app to spy on and covertly influence Americans were “compelling” and “well-founded.” 

TikTok and ByteDance then asked the appeals court to temporarily block the law from going into effect pending a Supreme Court review. A pause would also give the Trump administration time to act, the companies said in their Dec. 9 court filing. President-elect Donald Trump spearheaded an effort to ban TikTok during his first term, but has since said he would “save” the app. 

Allowing the law to take effect, even for a short time, would be detrimental to the platform, the filing argued. TikTok estimated that it could lose a third of its daily users in the U.S. within the first month of a shutdown. About 170 million people in the U.S. use TikTok. 

But the Justice Department pushed back on the assertion that TikTok would face “immediate harm” if the law was not paused. In its response, it noted that Americans who have already downloaded the app can continue using it after Jan. 19, though updates would no longer be available. 

On Friday, the leaders of the House China Committee sent letters to Google and Apple telling them to be ready to remove TikTok from their app stores by Jan. 19. 

Rep. John Moolenaar of Michigan, the Republican chairman of the committee, and Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois, the panel’s top Democrat, also sent a letter to TikTok urging it to sell the app. 

“Congress has acted decisively to defend the national security of the United States and protect TikTok’s American users from the Chinese Communist Party. We urge TikTok to immediately execute a qualified divestiture,” they wrote.