TikTok suffered a setback in Washington, DC on Friday when the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld a law requiring China-based parent company ByteDance to sell the popular social video-sharing platform by January 19 or else The use is banned in the USA

The likely next step for TikTok and ByteDance is an appeal to the full appeals court or the U.S. Supreme Court.

Incumbent President Joe Biden has the power to grant a 90-day extension. The ball would then pass to the court of President-elect Donald Trump, who takes office on January 20th.

It was Trump who initiated the idea of ​​a TikTok ban in the first place, when he told reporters aboard Air Force One in July 2020 that he was concerned about Chinese ownership.

However, after Biden took office, he signed an executive order in June 2021 revoking his predecessor’s order banning TikTok, messaging app WeChat, and eight other communications and financial technology software applications with Chinese ties.

The Biden administration’s goodwill did not last, as the House of Representatives passed a bipartisan bill forcing the divestment or sale in March, with the Senate following suit in April.

Eight TikTok creators entered the fray in May, filing a lawsuit claiming the potential ban violated their First Amendment rights.

And both sides presented their cases to the appeals court in September.

The Justice Department argued that TikTok posed a national security threat because of the personal data it collected from users and the ability for China to exploit that data, while TikTok and ByteDance countered that the law was unconstitutional and claimed it never was nor will it ever share data from US users.

Justices Douglas Ginsburg, Neomi Rao and Sri Srinivasan presided over the case, and Ginsburg wrote in the opinion reported by Reuters that the law was “carefully crafted to address only, and was part of, control by a foreign adversary.” .” broader efforts to counter a well-founded national security threat from the People’s Republic of China.”