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TikTok's future in jeopardy as US ban looms

10 0
12.12.2024

TikTok’s future in the U.S. is in serious jeopardy after a federal appeals court rejected its push to overturn a law that could ban the app next month.

The popular social media app’s fate now rests in the hands of the Supreme Court and the incoming Trump administration, which has offered tepid support at-best for TikTok in the wake of the election.

“TikTok is in an increasingly desperate situation,” Sarah Kreps, director of the Tech Policy Institute at Cornell University, said in a statement.

“There's a reason the law stipulated that the ban would take effect the day before the new administration is inaugurated and a new Congress begins,” she added. “No one wanted to relitigate this with a new set of political actors, but TikTok thinks that's its best hope.”

The app sought to put the clock on hold Monday, asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to temporarily block the law from going into effect Jan. 19 as it prepares to appeal to the Supreme Court.

TikTok noted the current deadline would cut off access for its 170 million U.S. users “on the eve of a presidential inauguration.”

“Before that happens, the Supreme Court should have an opportunity, as the only court with appellate jurisdiction over this action, to decide whether to review this exceptionally important case,” it wrote in Monday’s filing.

“And an injunction is especially appropriate because it will give the incoming Administration time to determine its position—which could moot both the impending harms and the need for Supreme Court review,” it continued.

TikTok also said that the app generates billions of dollars for the U.S. economy through its operations and the "advertising, marketing, and organic reach" on the platform.

It seems unlikely that the appeals court will enjoin its decision, said Wayne Unger, a law professor at Quinnipiac University.

A three-judge panel with the D.C. Circuit ruled in a unanimous decision Friday that the divest-or-ban law did not violate the First Amendment, as TikTok argued.

The court found that the government’s national security concerns about TikTok’s China-based parent company, as well as its years-long effort to........

© The Hill


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