A US appeals court has denied TikTok’s urgent request to temporarily suspend a law mandating its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to divest the short-video app by January 19, or risk a ban on the app.
On Monday, TikTok and ByteDance submitted the emergency motion to the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, seeking additional time to present their case to the US Supreme Court.
This ruling compels TikTok to promptly escalate the matter to the Supreme Court in an effort to prevent the impending ban.
The companies cautioned that without legal intervention, the law would “terminate TikTok – one of the nation’s most popular platforms for expression – affecting over 170 million domestic monthly users”.
TikTok has not provided an immediate response to a request for comment.
According to the law, TikTok faces a ban unless ByteDance divests its interest by January 19. Furthermore, the law grants the US government extensive authority to prohibit other foreign-owned apps that may pose concerns regarding the collection of American data.
The US Justice Department contends that “ongoing Chinese control of the TikTok application represents an enduring threat to national security”.
In response, TikTok asserts that the Justice Department has mischaracterized the app’s connections to China, claiming that its content recommendation system and user data are stored in the US on cloud servers operated by Oracle, and that content moderation decisions affecting US users are made domestically.
