Appeals court upholds law ordering China-based ByteDance to sell TikTok or face U.S. ban
A federal appeals court on Friday upheld a law requiring China-based ByteDance to sell TikTok or face an effective ban in the United States.
The ruling by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., rejected TikTok’s argument that the ban, signed into law by President Joe Biden in April, is unconstitutional and violates the First Amendment rights of the 170 million Americans that use the popular social media service.
If ByteDance fails to sell TikTok by Jan. 19, the law would require app store companies, like Apple and Google, and internet hosting providers to stop supporting TikTok, effectively banning the app.
Lawmakers from both parties have cited concerns about national security issues related to TikTok’s alleged connections to the Chinese government as a reason to ban the app.
“On the merits, we reject each of the petitioners’ constitutional claims,” the appeals court panel said in its opinion on the decision Friday.
“As we shall explain, the parts of the Act that are properly before this court do not contravene the First
Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, nor do they violate the Fifth Amendment guarantee of equal protection of the laws; constitute an unlawful bill of attainder … or work an uncompensated taking of
private property in violation of the Fifth Amendment,” the opinion said.
Rep. Troy Balderson, R-Ohio, in March called TikTok “a surveillance tool used by the Chinese Communist Party to spy on Americans and harvest highly personal data.”
President-elect Donald Trump has not yet said whether his administration will enforce the ban when he takes office next month.
In a September post on Truth Social, Trump said he wasn’t “doing anything with TikTok, but the other side is going to close it up, so if you like TikTok, go out and vote for Trump.”
Trump-Vance transition spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt told CNBC in November that the president-elect “will deliver” on his campaign promises.
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