Federal appeals court upholds law

A federal appeals court is backing a law that would ban TikTok in the United States if the social media app’s Chinese parent company doesn’t sell the platform by January.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit voted Friday to decline to consider three requests for relief from TikTok and ByteDance, the platform’s parent company. The court found the petitions seeking to repeal the adopted law unconstitutional.

In the spring, Congress passed the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act and President Joe Biden immediately signed the bill, which will take effect on January 19, 2025. Under the law, TikTok will become illegal if it continues to be operated by ByteDance for distribution in the United States. Downloading the app from the Apple App Store or Google Play is illegal and internet service providers must make the app inaccessible in US internet browsers.

Users who have TikTok on their devices would still be able to use the app under the law, but a ban on TikTok from app stores would prevent future software updates.

However, if ByteDance sells the platform to another company before January 19, the app will remain available in the States.

Holiday offers: Shop this season’s top products and special offers, curated by our editors.

What is TikTok?

TikTok is a social media application known for its short mobile videos. Users can create, publish and interact with videos within the app. Known for its scrolling algorithm, TikTok allows users to post videos between three seconds and ten minutes in length. Users can add various filters, backgrounds, music and stickers to their videos.

Why did the government create and pass the TikTok law?

TikTok has been a national security concern among government officials for several years. Officials fear that Beijing-based ByteDance has access to American data and is sharing it with Chinese government surveillance agencies.

In 2019, former President and now President-elect Donald Trump declared a national emergency when he discovered that “foreign adversaries,” in this case ByteDance, were “exploiting vulnerabilities in information and communications technologies and services,” the statement said of the Federal Court of Appeal. As part of his response, Trump banned all transactions with the company.

In 2021, Biden issued a new executive order on ByteDance, stating that the company “continues to threaten the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States,” the federal appeals court opinion said. In 2022, Biden signed a bill banning the use of TikTok on government devices.

TikTok is fighting back

Amid the national security allegations, TikTok and ByteDance have denied the claims. During arguments against the ban in the federal appeals court earlier this year, TikTok’s outside counsel Andrew Pincus addressed the potential impact of the ban, according to previous reporting by USA TODAY.

“The legislation before this court is unprecedented and its impact would be staggering,” Pincus said. “For the first time in history, Congress specifically targeted a specific U.S. speaker and banned his speech and the speech of 170 million Americans.”

Breaking News

Dellupodisabato

Leave a Reply Cancel reply