A federal court in Washington, DC today upheld a law requiring the sale or ban of TikTok after the social media company filed a lawsuit against the federal government.

In the lawsuit, TikTok argued that a bill passed by Congress in April that included a possible ban on the popular app violated First Amendment rights. The federal government then claimed that the fact that ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, is owned by China posed a potential threat to national security – especially since the platform says over 170 million Americans use the app every month.

“We conclude that the portions of the statute that petitioners may challenge, namely the provisions relating to TikTok and its affiliates, withstand constitutional scrutiny,” Justice Douglas Ginsburg wrote in the majority opinion. “We therefore reject the petitions.”

“The First Amendment is designed to protect free speech in the United States,” Ginsburg continued. “Here, the government acted solely to protect that freedom from a foreign adversary nation and to restrict that adversary’s ability to collect data about people in the United States.”

In response to the decision, TikTok released a statement saying they will appeal the case to the Supreme Court, writing: “The Supreme Court has a proven historical track record of protecting Americans’ right to free speech, and we expect that they will do just that on this important constitutional issue.”

“Unfortunately, the TikTok ban was designed and enforced based on inaccurate, erroneous and hypothetical information, resulting in total censorship of the American people,” TikTok continued. “The TikTok ban, unless stopped, will silence the voices of over 170 million Americans here in the United States and around the world on January 19, 2025.”

The ruling was also criticized by some civil liberties advocates, who warned that it could set a precedent that would allow the government to censor Americans’ speech online.

“The ban on TikTok blatantly violates the First Amendment rights of millions of Americans who use this app to express themselves and communicate with people around the world,” Patrick Toomey, deputy director of the ACLU National Security Project, said in a statement Statement to Yahoo News. “The government cannot shut down an entire communications platform unless it poses extremely serious and imminent harm, and there is no evidence of that here.”

TikTok is expected to appeal the case to the Supreme Court, which will then make a final decision on whether the ban will take effect in January if the company is not sold. If the ban goes into effect in 2025, it would be illegal for app stores and web hosting companies to distribute or update the TikTok app on American users’ phones.

What was the federal government’s argument?

The federal government argued that it would be fair for Congress to impose a nine-month deadline on ByteDance to sell TikTok or ban TikTok from U.S. app stores, citing “serious concerns about TikTok’s threat to national security.” which “emerge in the first place”. of…its ownership of a Chinese government…that views the United States as a geopolitical rival.”

Read more about the government’s support for a TikTok ban from Yahoo News: Is the government trying to ban TikTok again? What you should know about the bill that requires TikTok to separate from its China-based parent company.

What was TikTok’s argument?

TikTok’s lawsuit, which was linked to another lawsuit by TikTok creators, alleged that the government failed to provide evidence of the Chinese Communist Party’s involvement in the app and that a ban would be a violation of free speech. The company also argued that such a ban could set a precedent for the government to use “national security” as a reason to shut down other platforms, including newspapers or websites that “own and publish innovative and unique speech.”

Read more about TikTok’s arguments against the government’s ban on Yahoo News: TikTok is suing the US government. What does this mean for a possible ban on the platform?

Where does President-elect Trump stand?

Donald Trump, who will be sworn in for a second term in the White House in January, has expressed varying positions on TikTok.

As president, he issued an executive order in August 2020 threatening to ban TikTok if ByteDance did not sell the app to “protect our national security” from “disinformation campaigns that benefit the Chinese Community Party” – including allegedly “debunked conspiracy theories about the origins”. of the novel coronavirus 2019.” Several federal judges blocked Trump’s order to ban TikTok at the time.

When Trump ran for re-election this year, he appeared to back off his support for a TikTok ban. In an interview with CNBC in March, he said he did not support banning the app because it would only drive more users to Facebook, which he called the “enemy of the people.”

Then in June, Trump launched his own TikTok account to support his 2024 presidential campaign, which now has more than 14 million followers (though he hasn’t posted since Election Day). Around the same time, Biden also opened a TikTok account for his own re-election campaign, despite signing the bill banning the app two months earlier.

In a September Truth Social post, Trump also said he would “save TikTok in America” ​​if he won the election.

While Trump appears to support TikTok, Project 2025, a conservative blueprint from the Heritage Foundation for the next Republican presidential administration, opposes the app. Trump claims he has “nothing to do” with Project 2025; However, Trump’s choice of Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Brendan Carr and his choice of CIA chief John Ratcliffe were two of the Project 2025 authors who have openly supported the TikTok ban.

In addition to Trump and Biden, other government officials who have publicly condemned TikTok have also joined the platform.

They include members of Trump’s new administration, such as Vice President-elect JD Vance, who has more than 2 million followers and said he supported the ban in March, and press secretary Karoline Leavitt, who has over 37,000 followers despite calling the app a “curse.” our society right now” in a Fox News interview in December 2023.

But then there are politicians like Tulsi Gabbard, a former Democratic congresswoman and Trump’s nominee for director of national intelligence, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., his nominee to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, who have criticized both the TikTok ban while the app continues to have more than 1 million followers.

What would a ban look like for TikTok users in the US?

If ByteDance is unable or unwilling to sell TikTok within the allotted time frame and the ban officially goes into effect, it will be illegal for app stores and web hosting companies in the United States to distribute or update the app.

India, which banned TikTok four years ago along with dozens of other Chinese apps after a military clash on the India-China border, offers a glimpse of what that might look like. At the time, India had around 200 million TikTok users, making it the country with the most users outside of China.

Within months of the ban, millions of TikTok users in India flocked to Google’s YouTube Shorts and Instagram’s Reels. U.S. users could follow a similar path if TikTok is banned here, an outcome that appears to contradict both Trump and Biden’s concerns that certain tech giants could gain too much power and influence.