A federal appeals court on Friday left in place a mid-January deadline in a federal law requiring TikTok to be sold or face a ban in the United States, rejecting a request made by the company to halt enforcement until the Supreme Court reviews its challenge of the statute. Attorneys for TikTok and its China-based parent company, ByteDance, are expected to appeal to the Supreme Court, per the AP. It's unclear if the nation's highest court will take up the case, though some legal experts have said they expect the justices to weigh in due to the types of novel questions it raises about social media, national security, and the First Amendment. TikTok is also looking for a potential lifeline from President-elect Trump, who promised to "save" the short-form video platform during the presidential campaign.
Attorneys for TikTok and ByteDance had requested the injunction after a panel of three judges on the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit sided with the US government and rejected their challenge to the law. The court rejected that request on Dec. 6, calling it "unwarranted." "The petitioners have not identified any case in which a court, after rejecting a constitutional challenge to an Act of Congress, has enjoined the Act from going into effect while review is sought in the Supreme Court," said the court's order, which was unsigned. The statute, which was signed by President Biden earlier this year, requires ByteDance to sell TikTok to an approved buyer due to national security concerns or face a ban in the US.
The US has said it sees TikTok as a national security risk because ByteDance could be coerced by Chinese authorities to hand over US user data or manipulate content on the platform for Beijing's interests. TikTok has denied those claims and has argued that the government's case rests on hypothetical future risks instead of proven facts. In the request filed this week, attorneys for TikTok and ByteDance had asked for a "modest delay" in enforcement of the law so that the Supreme Court could review the case and the incoming Trump administration could "determine its position" on the matter. If the law isn't overturned, the two companies have said that the popular app will shut down by Jan. 19, just a day before Trump takes office again. More than 170 million American users would be affected, the companies have said.
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