In a major blow to TikTok, the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled on Friday that the popular short-video app – used by over 170 million Americans daily – can be banned in the US as soon as January 19 unless it secures a non-Chinese buyer.
The three-judge panel unanimously sided with a law signed by President Joe Biden in April, which mandates that TikTok – owned by the Chinese tech giant ByteDance – must find an American purchaser by the deadline or be removed from US app stores and web-hosting services.
“We conclude the portions of the act the petitioners have standing to challenge, that is the provisions concerning TikTok and its related entities, survive constitutional scrutiny,” Senior Judge Douglas Ginsburg wrote in the opinion.
“We therefore deny the petitions,” he added.
TikTok said shortly after the ruling was announced that the decision was “flawed” and would “silence” voices globally, vowing to appeal the decision to the US Supreme Court.
“The Supreme Court has an established historical record of protecting Americans’ right to free speech, and we expect they will do just that on this important constitutional issue”, the company said in an emailed statement.
It added: “Unfortunately, the TikTok ban was conceived and pushed through based upon inaccurate, flawed and hypothetical information, resulting in outright censorship of the American people.”
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