US TikTok ban can take effect in January, federal appeals court rules

App's future in America now likely to be decided by the Supreme Court and president-elect Donald Trump

TikTok faces a US ban after an appeals court on December 6, 2024, rejected its challenge to a law requiring the video-sharing app to divest from its Chinese parent company by January 19. AFP

A law that would see TikTok banned in America next month was upheld by a US federal appeals court on Friday, but the case is expected to head to the Supreme Court.

The decision is a win for the Justice Department and opponents of the Chinese-owned app and a devastating blow to parent company ByteDance. The wildly popular short-form video-sharing app is used by 170 million Americans.

The appeals court denied TikTok's petition to overturn the law – which requires TikTok to break ties with ByteDance or be banned by mid-January – and rebuffed the company's challenge of the statute, which it argued had ran afoul of the America's First Amendment that protects free speech.

“The First Amendment exists to protect free speech in the United States,” said the court's opinion, which was written by Judge Douglas Ginsburg. “Here the Government acted solely to protect that freedom from a foreign adversary nation and to limit that adversary’s ability to gather data on people in the United States.”

The law, signed by President Joe Biden in April, was the culmination of a years-long saga in Washington over TikTok, which the government sees as a national security threat due to its connections to China.

The decision – unless the Supreme Court reverses it – puts TikTok's fate in the hands of Mr Biden on whether to grant a 90-day extension of the January 19 deadline to force a sale.

President-elect Donald Trump takes office on January 20. He tried to ban TikTok during his first term but said during the presidential campaign that he is now against a TikTok ban and would work to “save” the social media platform.

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).”

The court acknowledged its decision would lead to TikTok's ban on January 19 without an extension from Mr 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 multiyear process in an effort to find an alternative solution.”

The Justice Department says under Chinese ownership, TikTok poses a serious national security threat because of its access to vast personal data of Americans, asserting China can covertly manipulate information that Americans consume via TikTok.

TikTok and ByteDance argue the law is unconstitutional and violates Americans' free speech rights. They call it “a radical departure from this country's tradition of championing an open internet.”