Social media company TikTok faced a major setback after the US court rejected its appeal to overturn a law that could ban the app in the country.
According to BBC, TikTok, which has over 170 million users in the US, filed an appeal in a federal court against the law passed by the American lawmakers asking the video-sharing platform to either sell its assets to a non-Chinese company or be banned in the country.
ByteDance-owned social media app argued in court that the law is unconstitutional as it represents a “staggering” impact on the free speech of millions of the users.
But after a long battle in the US, the court upheld the law and rejected TikTok’s appeal.
Judge Douglas Ginsburg said, “TikTok’s millions of users will need to find alternative media of communication. That burden is attributable to (China’s) hybrid commercial threat to US national security, not to the US government, which engaged with TikTok through a multi-year process in an effort to find an alternative solution.”
Meanwhile, TikTok has argued that divestiture is “not possible technologically, commercially, or legally,” and it will appeal the decision in the highest court, the US Supreme Court.
Michael Hughes, a TikTok spokesperson, stated, “The Supreme Court has an established historical record of protecting Americans’ right to free speech, and we expect they will do just that on this important constitutional issue.”
“Unfortunately, the TikTok ban was conceived and pushed through based upon inaccurate, flawed, and hypothetical information, resulting in outright censorship of the American people. The TikTok ban, unless stopped, will silence the voices of over 170 million Americans here in the US and around the world on January 19th, 2025,” he continued.
Furthermore, the US claims that TikTok is a national security threat because it could help China to access personal data from millions of Americans.
Notably, TikTok has a deadline till January 19, 2025, to sell the app or face the ban.
