Federal Appeals Court Upholds Law Requiring Sale Or Ban Of TikTok In The US

TikTok is one step closer to being banned in the United States. On Friday CNN reported that a federal appeals court consisting of three judges ruled unanimously to uphold a law that could outlaw the popular app in America. The legislation was originally passed back in April, with Congress requiring TikTok’s Chinese owner, ByteDance, to sell the company to an American owner by Jan. 19, 2025. President Joe Biden then signed the legislation into law, putting pressure on the company to comply or face an outright ban. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit released a statement regarding the decision. The legal body asserted that their decision was made in good faith, citing to protect American citizens’ right to free speech from “a foreign adversary nation and to limit that adversary’s ability to gather data on people in the United States. “We recognize that this decision has significant implications for TikTok and its users. Unless TikTok executes a qualified divestiture by January 19, 2025 — or the President grants a 90-day extension based upon progress towards a qualified divestiture, § 2(a)(3) its platform will effectively be unavailable in the United States, at least for a time,” the ruling concluded.

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