By TrumpG 
The federal appeals court has upheld the ruling that would ban TikTok in the U.S. in January 2025. Recall that TikTok appealed to the appellate court, arguing that the U.S. decision to ban the app or force ByteDance to sell its American division to a domestic company is unconstitutional. TikTok’s lawyers said in September that the ban would have an “incredibly negative impact on freedom of speech” for the app’s 170 million users in the U.S. However, the appeals court today ruled that the law is “the culmination of extensive congressional action.”
The law was “carefully designed to address only the control of a foreign rival and was part of broader efforts to counter the well-justified national security threat posed by the People’s Republic of China,” the ruling continues.
The U.S. wants TikTok to be sold or banned, citing the app owner’s ties to China’s highest government, which both TikTok and parent company ByteDance have consistently denied. Trump to the rescue? In its reasoning, the court said ByteDance’s ownership of TikTok poses a national security threat that outweighs free speech concerns. “The First Amendment exists to protect free speech in the United States.
Here, the Government acted solely to protect that freedom from an adversarial nation and to limit that adversary’s ability to collect information about people in the United States,” the court wrote. The decision by the three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia brought victory to the Biden administration, and now TikTok’s future is uncertain.
However, it may not be over yet. Newly elected President Donald Trump has actually promised to save TikTok, but it remains to be seen what that means exactly, NPR reports. Under the law, TikTok has until January 19 to sell or face a nationwide ban. That deadline can be extended by 90 days if there is “significant progress toward a sale.” One option, then, could be to advance the effective date and have Trump try to reach a deal for the app to be bought by a U.S. company or group of investors.
Trump could also say that the steps TikTok has taken to distance itself from ByteDance, including a plan known as “Project Texas” that stores data for Americans in that state, are sufficient. It remains to be seen what TikTok’s fate will be in the U.S., but for now, at the very least, they don’t have a bright future.
