The Fate of TikTok Has Been Decided as Court of Appeals Makes Big Decision

A federal law that would ban the app TikTok if its Chinese parent company remains in control of it has passed a legal challenge.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said it would not review a plea from TikTok and ByteDance, the Chinese parent company of the app, according to CBS.

The law takes effect Jan. 19. President Joe Biden can delay the ban for 90 days if a sale is in progress at that time.

The potential TikTok ban came about as legislators of both parties said that its 170 million American users could be spied upon by China.

Concerns have also been expressed that TikTok could use the platform to influence opinions by banning or emphasizing certain content as China might wish.

The decision sets up an appeal to the Supreme Court, which given the short time before the ban takes hold could either pause the law while it considers an appeal or allow the law to take effect.

“We conclude the portions of the Act the petitioners have standing to challenge, that is the provisions concerning TikTok and its related entities, survive constitutional scrutiny,” Senior Judge Douglas Ginsburg wrote in the ruling.

 “The First Amendment exists to protect free speech in the United States,” the ruling said.

“Here the Government acted solely to protect that freedom from a foreign adversary nation and to limit that adversary’s ability to gather data on people in the United States,” it said.

The ruling said banning TikTok could have vast implications, but that is not the government’s fault.

“Consequently, TikTok’s millions of users will need to find alternative media of communication,” the ruling said.

 “That burden is attributable to the [People’s Republic of China’s] hybrid commercial threat to U.S. national security, not to the U.S. Government, which engaged with TikTok through a multi-year process in an effort to find an alternative solution.”

The ruling said the national security grounds used for the ban are valid.

“The multi-year efforts of both political branches to investigate the national security risks posed by the TikTok platform, and to consider potential remedies proposed by TikTok, weigh heavily in favor of the Act,” the ruling said.

 “The government has offered persuasive evidence demonstrating that the act is narrowly tailored to protect national security,” the ruling said.

ByteDance and TikTok said that it would not sell its algorithm used to recommend content to anyone else.

President-elect Donald Trump is expected to intervene to halt the ban, The Washington Post wrote, citing sources it did not name. Trump takes office a day after the ban takes effect.

Alan Rozenshtein, a former national security adviser to the Justice Department, said Trump could have Congress repeal the law, simply choose not to have the Justice Department enforce it, or certify that ByteDance met the law’s terms.

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