Court Rejects TikTok’s Bid to Stay Possible US Ban Pending Supreme Court Review
A federal appeals court has refused to delay enforcement of a law that requires TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to divest from the popular social media app by January 19, 2025, or be banned in the United States.
Background
The PAFACA was enacted in April 2024 with the president, Joe Biden, presiding over its signing into law and under which applications that are foreign-owned and deemed dangerous to U.S. security are either to be sold to an approved buyer or barred from the United States. There has always been uncertainty over data security and sovereignty concerns raised by the Chinese authorities and this party brings in TikTok, nad it has collected as many as 170 million American users.
Legal Proceedings
TikTok and ByteDance also together filed a rule with a recipe making the PAFACA invalid under the Constitution claiming that it infringes on the rights of freedom of speech as giving by the First Amendment and also goes against the rights of property that is given under the Fifth Amendment. In its decision on December 6, 2024, a bench comprising of all the Active Circu judges of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit tossed out all the constitutional allegations made by TikTok against the law.
Since that ruling, TikTok has sought an injunction to restrain the administration of the law to allow its consideration by the Supreme Court. But the appeals court turned down the request on December 13 stating that TikTok did not demonstrate it would suffer the irreparable harm which would warrant such remedy.
Impact
Without an intervention from the Supreme Court, TikTok faces a deadline to comply with the divestiture order by January 19, 2025, or cease operations in the U.S. The company argues that it can’t possibly accomplish a forced sale in the timeframe, and that shutting down would heavily affect its base of American users and associated businesses.
The government argues that the ties of TikTok to China create a national security threat, as it fears that the Chinese Communist Party could access the data of American users or influence what appears on the platform. TikTok has repeatedly denied this, arguing that it is working to protect user data and that the government’s concerns are hypothetical.
What Happens Now
TikTok intends to appeal directly to the Supreme Court for a review of the lower court’s decision and possibly a stay on the enforcement of the law. The consequence of this could very well make or break the future of TikTok in the U.S. and perhaps set a legal precedent for how the government regulates foreign-owned digital platforms.
As the January deadline nears, all eyes will be on the Supreme Court, awaiting its move that will decide whether it steps in this high-stakes case that poises national security against issues of free speech and corporate rights.
