An appeals court will hear arguments in mid-September challenging a new federal law requiring TikTok’s China-based parent company to either sell the ultra-popular app or face a U.S. ban, leaving TikTok’s status up in the air just four months before a ban could take effect—and less than two months before the presidential election.
TikTok could be banned as early as January if its China-based parent company doesn’t sell the ... [+]
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit scheduled oral arguments from TikTok and its parent company ByteDance, creators who sued over the potential ban and the justice department for Sept. 16.
The appeal stems from TikTok and ByteDance filing a lawsuit in May—just weeks after the ban-or-sale law was signed into law by President Joe Biden—that alleges the law violates the First Amendment and requires a sale in an unrealistic timeline.
A group of eight TikTok users also sued the government, alleging the law violates their First Amendment rights, is “unconstitutionally overbroad” and would put an end to a way of communicating that is a “part of American life,” and that appeal was consolidated with TikTok’s.
Legal briefs for the arguments must be filed by July 26 and reply briefs for the case must be filed by Aug. 15, Reuters reported.
170 million. That’s about how many Americans use TikTok, according to the appeal by eight TikTok users.
The appeals court’s schedule will place oral arguments just weeks before the November presidential election. Former President Donald Trump has taken aim at Biden over the potential ban, arguing it would unfairly boost Facebook parent Meta—even though Trump previously backed an effort to force a TikTok sale when he was in office.
In April, Biden signed a bill that requires TikTok to be sold or banned in the U.S. by Jan. 19, 2025, in an effort to address “critical national security concerns.” The law followed years of scrutiny over TikTok’s China-based ownership, including fears ByteDance could share data on U.S. users with the Chinese government or skew the content seen by users to serve China’s foreign policy interests—though TikTok has long denied any ties to the Chinese government. The day it was signed, TikTok and ByteDance vowed to take legal action against the law, alleging it was unconstitutional and it would be impossible to transfer its code to another owner within nine months even if ByteDance was able to divest from the app. Lawmakers have been working to ban TikTok in some capacity for years over security concerns, but the app actually won a legal challenge in 2020 after Trump tried to force the sale of TikTok through an executive order that would have prohibited any U.S.-based transactions with ByteDance if it didn’t divest the app within 45 days of signing. The federal government did succeed in banning the app from government-owned devices in 2022, and a number of states have followed suit and banned it on state-owned devices.