Social media platform TikTok and its Chinese-owned parent company ByteDance have asked an appeals court to temporarily block a law requiring divestment by January 19 in order to avoid a ban in the United States pending review of their case by the U.S. Supreme Court.
The emergency motion filed with the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia argues that, absent an injunction, the law will “shut down TikTok — one of the nation’s most popular speech platforms — for its more than 170 million domestic monthly users on the eve of a presidential inauguration.”
[RELATED: TikTok Sues US Government to Halt Enforcement of Potential “Ban”]
This request comes after a three judge panel of the Appeals Court voted to uphold the law Friday.
TikTok and ByteDance argued in their filing that the Supreme Court is likely to take up their case and cited statements from former and president-elect Donald Trump (R) that he intends to prevent the platform from being banned.
They suggest that the injunction “will give the incoming administration time to determine its position — which could moot both the impending harms and the need for Supreme Court review.”
The filing goes on to suggest that should the site be banned while the case is still under review, it would “inflict extreme and irreparable harm” for TikTok and its users, “deprive TikTok’s base of 170 million monthly users and creators of access to one of the country’s most popular speech platforms; destroy TikTok’s ability to attract advertisers; and cripple Petitioners’ ability to recruit and retain talent.”
TikTok and ByteDance went on to indicate that if the appeals court does not grant them an injunction, they will seek an emergency order at the Supreme Court but would prefer not to do so, as they do not want the Justices to be “hasty” and would rather allow them to have a “more deliberate and orderly process.”
“A modest delay in enforcing the Act will simply create breathing room for the Supreme Court to conduct an orderly review and for the incoming Administration to evaluate this matter—before one of this country’s most important speech platforms is shuttered,” TikTok and ByteDance argued.
The companies have asked the appeals court to make a decision on the injunction by December 16.
Approved by a bipartisan vote of 79-18 in the Senate and signed into law by President Joe Biden (D), the law at the center of this challenge would ban TikTok from all US app stores unless ByteDance sells the social media site within about nine months of the bill’s passage.
Division H of HR 815 — the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act — originated as a standalone House bill in March where it was quickly approved by a strong bipartisan majority in a vote of 352-65.
The measure stalled in the Senate, however, before being added into the omnibus foreign aid package.
[RELATED: Potential TikTok Ban Passes U.S. House of Reps with Strong Bipartisan Support]
Although this law is frequently referred to as a ban on TikTok, lawmakers have pushed back on this interpretation, suggesting that it primarily functions as a divestment requirement.
According to the lawsuit, mandating ByteDance to divest from TikTok would result in the isolation of US users from international content, as well as prevent them from accessing the platform’s signature recommendation algorithm.
TikTok suggests in their lawsuit that the Chinese government would “assert its export control powers” to prevent this technology from being shared in the event that ByteDance divest from TikTok.
The filing goes on to suggest that even if this weren’t the case, it would be “extraordinary and unconstitutional” for the government to require a separation of the sort mandated by this bill.
TikTok has been subject to heightened scrutiny in recent months over data privacy concerns, as Chinese law requires the country’s businesses to share information with the government upon request.
Despite this law, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew has denied ever having shared U.S. users’ data with the Chinese government, stating before Congress that the company has begun taking steps to ensure that American data continues to remain shielded from Chinese officials, citing what has become known as “Project Texas.”
The $1.5 billion plan primarily entails transferring the data of US TikTok users to the cloud infrastructure of Oracle — a cloud company based in Austin, Texas — as well as restructuring their US operations to provide a greater level of transparency and oversight in an effort to increase American confidence in the platform’s security.
Regardless of this, both the federal government and a number of states had previously taken action to ban the download or use of TikTok on government-owned devices due to security concerns.
As of January 2023, 33 states — including Maine — had put in place some form of a ban on TikTok for government-issued devices.
that is interesting to ban. many people in america uses tiktok and it needs not to be banned in there.