TikTok loses appeals court bid to halt rule that could lead to US ban
A US appeals court panel on Friday unanimously upheld a rule that could lead to a ban on TikTok in a few short months, handing a stunning defeat to 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 rejected TikTok’s request to overturn the law — which requires TikTok to sever ties with its China-based parent company ByteDance or be shut down by mid-January — and dismissed the company’s challenge to the law, which it said violated 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 has only acted to protect that freedom from a foreign enemy nation and to limit the enemy’s ability to collect information on the people of the United States.”
TikTok and ByteDance – another plaintiff in the case – are expected to appeal the case to the US Supreme Court, although it is unclear whether the court will answer the case.
“The Supreme Court has a strong record of protecting Americans’ right to free speech, and we expect they will do so on this important constitutional issue,” TikTok spokesman Michael Hughes said in a statement.
“Unfortunately, the ban on TikTok was initiated and carried out based on inaccurate, flawed and speculative information, which led to the scrutiny of the American people,” Hughes said.
Without stopping, Hughes argued the provision “will silence the voices of more than 170 million Americans here in the US and around the world on January 19, 2025.”
Trump can provide a lifeline
Although the case is in the court system, it is also possible that the two companies were thrown some kind of lifestyle by the president-elect of the United States Donald Trump, who tried to close TikTok during his first term but said during the recent presidential campaign that he said. now he is against doing that.
The law, signed by US President Joe Biden in April, was the culmination of a years-long debate in Washington over the short video-sharing app, which the government sees as a national security threat because of its ties to China.
“Today’s decision is an important step to prevent the Chinese government from using TikTok to collect sensitive information about millions of Americans, secretly manipulate content delivered to American audiences, and undermine our national security,” said US Attorney General Merrick Garland in a statement. statement on Friday.
The US has said it is concerned that TikTok is collecting too much user data, including sensitive data about viewing habits, that could fall into the hands of the Chinese government by force.
Officials also warned a proprietary algorithm that determines what users see on the app is vulnerable to manipulation by Chinese authorities, who say they could use it to shape content on the platform in ways that are difficult to see – a concern echoed by the European Union. on Friday as it considers the role of the video-sharing app in the Romanian elections.
TikTok, which sued the US government over the law in May, has long denied that it could be used by Beijing to spy on or manipulate Americans. Its lawyers pointed out precisely that the US did not provide evidence showing that the company provided user data to the Chinese government, or manipulated the content to benefit Beijing in the US.
They also say the law is predicated on future risks, which the US Justice Department insists points in part to unspecified actions it says the two companies have taken in the past at the behest of the Chinese government.
TikTok has also faced increasing problems on this side of the border, with the Canadian government – citing national security – recently forcing the company to close its operations in Canada, although the use of the application is still allowed. In response, TikTok said it will challenge the order in court.
Before that, Ottawa banned the app from federal government devices by 2023. Similar bans have occurred at the provincial and district government levels.
Two years ago, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said that Canada’s electronic spy agency was looking into security threats from the operating system.
The court heard oral arguments in September
Friday’s ruling came after an appeals court panel, made up of two Republican and one Democratic justices, heard oral arguments in September.
In the trial, which lasted more than two hours, the panel appeared to debate how TikTok’s foreign ownership affects their rights under the Constitution and how far the government can go to limit potential influence from abroad on the foreign platform. On Friday, all three denied TikTok’s request.
In the court’s ruling, Ginsburg, a Republican nominee, rejected TikTok’s main arguments against the law, including that the law was an unlawful acquisition or seizure of property in violation of the Fifth Amendment.
He also said the law did not violate the First Amendment because the government is not looking to “suppress content or require a certain mix of content” on TikTok.
“The content of the platform can remain unchanged after the separation, and the people of the United States will remain free to read and share PRC propaganda (or other content) as they wish on TikTok or any other platform of their choice,” Ginsburg wrote, using the People’s Republic summary. of China.
Justice Srinivasan, the chief justice of the court, issued a similar opinion.
Some US lawmakers are celebrating the decision
The TikTok case is joined by a second legal challenge brought by several content creators – the company is paying legal fees – and a third filed on behalf of conservative creators working with a non-profit organization called BASED Politics Inc. Other organizations, including a third filed on behalf of conservative activists working with a nonprofit called BASED Politics Inc. the Knight First Amendment Institute, also filed amicus briefs in support of TikTok.
“This is a deeply flawed decision that reads the fundamental precedents of the First Amendment and gives the government too much power to restrict Americans’ access to information, ideas, and media from abroad,” said Jameel Jaffer, the organization’s executive director. “We hope that the decision of the appeals court will not be final.”
Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, lawmakers who pushed for the law celebrated the court’s decision.
“I hope that President Trump will facilitate the takeover of TikTok America to allow its continued use in the United States and I look forward to welcoming this app to America under new ownership,” said Rep. Republican Rep. John Moolenaar of Michigan, chairman of the association. House Select Committee on China.
Democratic Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, who co-authored the legislation, said it was “time for ByteDance to accept” the legislation.
To ease the concerns of the company’s owners, TikTok says it has invested more than 2 billion US dollars to strengthen protections regarding the data of US users.
The company also pointed out that government-wide concerns could be addressed in the draft agreement it gave the Biden administration more than two years ago during negotiations between the two sides. It accused the government of walking away from ongoing negotiations about the deal, which the Justice Department says is insufficient.
Lawyers for the two companies say it is impossible to separate the platform commercially and technically. They also said that any sale of TikTok without the desired algorithm – the platform’s secret sauce that Chinese authorities could block under any censorship plan – would turn the US version of TikTok into an island cut off from the rest of the world’s content.
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