A federal appeals court panel on Friday unanimously upheld a law that could lead to a ban on TikTok within months, dealing a resounding defeat for the popular social media platform as it fights for its survival in the US.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit denied TikTok’s petition to overturn the law, which requires TikTok to sever its ties with its China-based parent company ByteDance or be banned by mid-September. January, and rejected the company’s challenge to the statute. which, he claimed, had conflicted with the First Amendment.
“The First Amendment exists to protect freedom of speech in the United States,” said the court’s opinion, written by Justice Douglas Ginsburg. “Here the Government acted solely to protect that freedom from a foreign adversary nation and to limit that adversary’s ability to collect data about people in the United States.”
TikTok and ByteDance, another plaintiff in the lawsuit, are expected to appeal to the Supreme Court, although it is unclear whether the court will take up the case.
“The Supreme Court has an established record of protecting Americans’ right to free speech, and we hope it will do just that on this important constitutional issue,” TikTok spokesperson Michael Hughes said in a statement.
“Unfortunately, the TikTok ban was conceived and pushed based on inaccurate, flawed and hypothetical information, resulting in outright censorship of the American people,” Hughes said. Unless stopped, he argued that the statute “will silence the voices of more than 170 million Americans here in the U.S. and around the world on January 19, 2025.”
Although the case is squarely in the court system, it’s also possible that the two companies will be thrown some sort of lifeline by President-elect Donald Trump, who attempted to ban TikTok during his first term but said during the presidential campaign that he is now against such action. .
The law, signed by President Joe Biden in April, was the culmination of a years-long saga in Washington over the short-form video-sharing app, which the government views as a national security threat because of its connections to China.
“Today’s decision is an important step in preventing the Chinese government from weaponizing TikTok to collect sensitive information on millions of Americans, covertly manipulate content delivered to American audiences, and undermine our national security,” said Attorney General Merrick Garland. in a statement. Friday.
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The United States has said it is concerned that TikTok collects large amounts of user data, including sensitive information about viewing habits, which could fall into the hands of the Chinese government through coercion. Officials also warned that the proprietary algorithm that powers what users see on the app is vulnerable to manipulation by Chinese authorities, who can use it to shape the platform’s content in a way that is difficult to detect. a concern that the European Union reflected on Friday. while analyzing the role of the video-sharing application in the Romanian elections.
TikTok, which sued the government over the law in May, has long denied that Beijing could use it to spy on or manipulate Americans. Its lawyers have pointed out that the United States has not provided evidence showing that the company handed over user data to the Chinese government or manipulated content for Beijing’s benefit in the United States. They have also argued that the law is based on future risks, which the Justice Department has emphasized partly points to unspecified actions it claims the two companies have taken in the past due to demands from the Chinese government.
Friday’s ruling came after the appeals court panel, made up of two judges appointed by a Republican and a Democrat, heard oral arguments in September.
In the hearing, which lasted more than two hours, the panel appeared to grapple with how TikTok’s foreign ownership affects its rights under the Constitution and how far the government could go to reduce potential foreign influence on a foreign-owned platform. On Friday, all three denied TikTok’s request.
In the court’s ruling, Ginsburg, a Republican appointee, rejected TikTok’s main legal arguments against the law, including that the statute was an unlawful enforcement declaration or taking of property in violation of the Fifth Amendment. He also said the law did not violate the First Amendment because the government does not seek to “suppress content or require a certain mix of content” on TikTok.
“In principle, the platform’s content could remain unchanged after the sale, and people in the United States would remain free to read and share as much PRC propaganda (or any other content) as they wish on TikTok or any other platform of your choice.” Ginsburg wrote, using the abbreviation for People’s Republic of China.
Chief Justice Sri Srinivasan issued a concurring opinion.
TikTok’s lawsuit was consolidated with a second legal challenge filed by several content creators, for which the company covers legal costs, as well as a third filed on behalf of conservative creators who work with a nonprofit called BASED Politics. Inc. Other organizations, including The Knight First Amendment Institute, had also filed amicus briefs in support of TikTok.
“This is a profoundly misguided ruling that overly interprets important First Amendment precedents and gives the government broad power to restrict Americans’ access to information, ideas and media from abroad,” said Jameel Jaffer. , executive director of the organization. “We hope the appeals court ruling is not the final word.”
Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, lawmakers who had pushed for passage of the legislation celebrated the court’s ruling.
“I am optimistic that President Trump will facilitate a US acquisition of TikTok to enable its continued use in the United States and I look forward to welcoming the app to the United States under new ownership,” said Republican Rep. John Moolenaar of Michigan, chairman of the House Select Committee on China.
Democratic Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, a co-author of the bill, said “it’s time for ByteDance to accept” the law.
To calm concerns about the company’s owners, TikTok says it has invested more than $2 billion to strengthen data protection for American users.
The company has also argued that the government’s broader concerns could have been resolved in a draft agreement it provided to the Biden administration more than two years ago during talks between the two sides. He has blamed the government for abandoning further negotiations on the deal, which the Justice Department says is insufficient.
Lawyers for the two companies have stated that it is impossible to get rid of the platform commercially and technologically. They also say that any sale of TikTok without the coveted algorithm — the platform’s secret sauce that Chinese authorities would likely block under any divestment plan — would turn the U.S. version of TikTok into an island disconnected from other global content.
Still, some investors, including Trump’s former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and billionaire Frank McCourt, have expressed interest in purchasing the platform. Both men said earlier this year that they were launching a consortium to buy TikTok’s US business.
This week, a spokesperson for McCourt’s Project Freedom initiative, which aims to protect online privacy, said anonymous participants in his initiative have made informal commitments of more than $20 billion in capital.
