TikTok’s appeal against a United States government ban has failed, with a judge dismissing its arguments that its First Amendment free speech rights are being restricted
An appeals court in the United States has upheld a law passed by Congress earlier in 2024 to ban China-owned video-sharing social media platform TikTok in the US on national security and data protection grounds
The law sailed through the US legislature back in April, after being included in a wider package of aid for Israel, Taiwan and Ukraine. It gives TikTok’s parent, ByteDance, notice to either sell TikTok to a US-based entity or be removed from online app stores for good – with both Apple and Google facing financial penalties if they do not comply.
The law’s passage came amid a growing freeze in relations between the US and China, and a spate of accusations from Western cyber security agencies claiming widespread Chinese cyber espionage.
TikTok appealed against this, but the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columba Circuit today [6 December] unanimously denied this petition.
In the court’s opinion on the case of TikTok and ByteDance Ltd versus Merrick Garland [US attorney general], judge Douglas Ginsberg said the decision had significant implications for both TikTok and its users, because unless ByteDance divests the business by 19 January 2025, or the president grants a 90-day extension, the TikTok platform will “effectively be unavailable in the United States…. Consequently, TikTok’s millions of users will need to find alternative media of communication.”
Ginsberg wrote this burden was attributable to China’s hybrid commercial threat to US security and not the US government, which he wrote has been engaged with TikTok for some time in efforts to find alternative solutions.
