Appeals Court Rules TikTok Has Six Weeks to Break Ties With China or Go Out of Business

A federal appeals court has upheld a law requiring the social media platform TikTok to sever relations with its parent company ByteDance or lose access to the US market.

A panel of three judges from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit unanimously sided with the Justice Department in declining to review the petition for relief from TikTok and ByteDance, its Chinese parent company, saying the law is constitutional.
"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 majority opinion. "We therefore deny the petitions."
Congress approved a foreign assistance package in April that included provisions giving TikTok nine months to sever ties with ByteDance or lose access to app stores and web-hosting services in the U.S. President Biden quickly signed the bill into law, and it is set to take effect on Jan. 19, with the possibility of a one-time 90-day delay granted by the president if a sale is in progress by then.

This controversy has its roots in Trump's first administration when he signed an executive order banning federal agencies and entities from using the app.

President Trump separately invoked his powers under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) and the National Emergencies Act to address “the threat posed by one mobile application in particular, TikTok.” Addressing the Threat Posed by TikTok, Exec. Order No. 13942, 85 Fed. Reg. 48637, 48637 (Aug. 6, 2020). President Trump prohibited certain “transactions” with ByteDance or its subsidiaries, id. at 48638, and the Secretary of Commerce later published a list of prohibited transactions, 85 Fed. Reg. 60061 (Sept. 24, 2020). Litigation ensued, and two courts enjoined the President’s prohibitions under the IEEPA as exceeding his authority under that law. TikTok Inc. v. Trump, 507 F. Supp. 3d 92, 102 (D.D.C. 2020); Maryland v. Trump, 498 F. Supp. 3d 624, 638, 641–45 (E.D. Pa. 2020).
In 2021, President Biden withdrew President Trump’s IEEPA executive order and issued a new one. In the new order, the President identified the PRC as “a foreign adversary” that “continues to threaten the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States” through its control of “software applications” used in the United States. Protecting Americans’ Sensitive Data From Foreign Adversaries, Exec. Order No. 14034, 86 Fed. Reg. 31423, 31423 (June 9, 2021). President Biden elaborated that “software applications” can provide foreign adversaries with “vast swaths of information from users,” and that the PRC’s “access to large repositories” of such data “presents a significant risk.” Id. President Biden directed several executive agencies to provide risk mitigation options, and he asked for recommended “executive and legislative actions” to counter risks “associated with connected software applications that are designed, developed, manufactured, or supplied by persons owned or controlled by, or subject to the jurisdiction or direction of, a foreign adversary.” Id. The following year, President Biden signed into law a bill prohibiting the use of TikTok on government devices. See generally Pub. L. No. 117-328, div. R, 136 Stat. 5258 (2022).

The Trump-oriented America First Policy Institute supported banning TikTok. In April 2024, Biden signed the law requiring its divestiture.

In its opinion, the appeals court ruled that the law passed constitutional muster even under a "strict scrutiny" standard.

To satisfy strict scrutiny the Government must “demonstrate that a speech restriction: (1) serves a compelling government interest; and (2) is narrowly tailored to further that interest.” In re Sealed Case, 77 F.4th at 830. “A restriction is narrowly tailored if less restrictive alternatives would not accomplish the Government’s goals equally or almost equally effectively.” Id. (cleaned up). The Act clears this high bar.

Chief Judge Sri Srinivasan (Obama), Neomi Rao (Trump), and Douglas Ginsburg (Reagan) heard the case. An appeal to the Supreme Court is expected.

TikTok is facing increasing pressure from the West as it has become obvious that it is being used to collect data on behalf of China, which includes biometric data that allows the age, gender, and ethnicity of users to be categorized. In addition to messages in the videos, psychological experiments are carried out to determine how to mold reactions on subjects through video.

Due to privacy and security concerns, several countries have implemented partial bans or restrictions, particularly on government-issued devices. These include but are not limited to the United States, where federal and many state government devices have restrictions, and various European countries like the UK, France, Belgium, Denmark, and others.

The European Parliament, the European Commission, and the EU Council have banned TikTok on staff devices.

New Zealand, Norway, Taiwan, and Canada have also placed restrictions or bans on government devices at governmental levels.

The US restriction, banning it from app stores, would be the most wide-ranging and painful yet applied to ByteDance's product.

Nothing is ever simple.

Trump's success using TikTok in 2024 has convinced the lower IQ demographic that TikTok is being banned because Trump used it.

For the record - this is why they want TikTok banned. pic.twitter.com/cOzGlwV9Wm
— Isabel Brown (@theisabelb) December 6, 2024

Trump could have just effectively used a TikTok that did not send data on Trump supporters to Beijing.

Naturally, having won the fight he started, Trump is now making noises about reversing his support.

Many Trump supporters celebrating the court's approval of the Biden TikTok ban seem to be unaware that Donald Trump opposes this law to ban TikTok and has vowed to reverse it.https://t.co/ebu7SzbkKZ
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) December 6, 2024

And, of course, the Jews were behind it all.

If TikTok is going bye bye, people should at least know the monsters who did it... https://t.co/gFvEa7EPo9 pic.twitter.com/MHDKSYhTCf
— James Li (@5149jamesli) December 6, 2024

The ban on TikTok is a righteous act. All it has to do to survive is become independent of Chinese influence and control. As the saying goes, "The Constitution is not a suicide pact." In this case, the law in question doesn't seem to be unconstitutional.