TikTok’s future is uncertain after an appeals court rejected its request to overturn a possible U.S. ban

A federal appeals court on Friday unanimously upheld a law that might see TikTok banned in a few short months, dealing a resounding defeat to a popular social media platform struggling to survive within the U.S.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rejected TikTok’s request to strike down a law that requires TikTok to cut ties with its Chinese parent company ByteDance or impose a ban by mid-January, and rejected the corporate’s challenge to the statute that it argued violated the First Amendment.

“The First Amendment is designed to protect free speech in the United States,” said the court’s opinion, written by Justice Douglas Ginsburg. “In this case, the government acted solely to protect that freedom from a hostile foreign country and to limit that adversary’s ability to collect data on the people of the United States.”

TikTok and ByteDance – one other plaintiff within the lawsuit – are expected to appeal to the Supreme Court, even though it is unclear whether the court will hear the case.

“The Supreme Court has a strong history of protecting Americans’ right to free speech, and we expect it will do just that on this important constitutional issue,” TikTok spokesman Michael Hughes said in a statement.

“Unfortunately, the TikTok ban was conceived and implemented based on inaccurate, erroneous and hypothetical information, resulting in blatant censorship of the American people,” Hughes said. He argued that if the bill is not stopped, “January 19, 2025 will silence the voices of over 170 million Americans in the U.S. and around the world.”

While the case is already before the courts, it is also possible that each firms will find a lifeline from President-elect Donald Trump, who tried to ban TikTok during his first term but said throughout the presidential campaign that it is now against such motion.

The bill signed by President Joe Biden in April was the culmination long history in Washington via the federal government’s short video sharing app sees it as a threat to national security due to connections with China.

The United States has expressed concern that TikTok collects huge amounts of user data, including: sensitive details about your viewing habitsthat might fall under duress into the hands of the Chinese government. Officials also warned that the proprietary algorithm that generates what users see on the app is vulnerable to manipulation by Chinese authorities, who could use it to shape content on the platform in ways which can be difficult to detect – raising concerns reflected by the European Union on Friday, examining the role of video-sharing apps within the Romanian elections.

TikTok, which sued the federal government over the law in May, has long denied that Beijing could use it to spy on or manipulate Americans. Its lawyers appropriately identified that the United States had not presented evidence showing that the corporate provided user data to the Chinese government or manipulated content to profit Beijing within the United States. They also argued that the law is based on future threats, a point the Justice Department has emphasized by pointing partially to unspecified actions it says the 2 firms have taken previously in response to Chinese government requests.

Friday’s ruling got here after a meeting of an appeals court panel that features two Republican-appointed judges and one Democratic-appointed judge. heard oral arguments in September.

During the hearing, which lasted greater than two hours, the panel appeared to grapple with how TikTok’s foreign ownership affects its rights under the Constitution and the way far the federal government can go to limit potential foreign influence over the foreign-owned platform. On Friday, all three rejected the TikTok petition.

In the court’s ruling, Ginsburg, the GOP nominee, rejected TikTok’s essential legal arguments against the law, including that the charter constituted an illegal act of acquiring property or taking property in violation of the Fifth Amendment. He also said the law doesn’t violate the First Amendment because the federal government doesn’t intend to “hide content or require a particular mix of content” on TikTok.

“Content on the platform could remain essentially unchanged after divestment, and U.S. residents would be free to read and share as much PRC propaganda (or any other content) as they want on TikTok or another platform of their choice,” Ginsburg wrote, using an abbreviation for Chinese People’s Republic.

Justice Sri Srinivasan, the court’s chief judge, delivered a concurring opinion.

TikTok’s lawsuit was combined with a second legal suit filed by several content creators – for which the corporate is paying legal fees – and a third filed on behalf of conservative creators working with a nonprofit organization called BASED Politics Inc. Other organizations, including the Knight First Amendment Institute, have also filed amicus briefs in support of TikTok.

“This is a deeply flawed ruling that reads too narrowly into important First Amendment precedents and gives the government enormous power to limit Americans’ access to information, ideas and media from abroad,” said Jameel Jaffer, the organization’s executive director. “We hope that the appeals court ruling will not be the last word.”

Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, lawmakers who had pushed for the bill’s passage celebrated the court’s ruling.

“I am optimistic that President Trump will facilitate a U.S. acquisition of TikTok to enable its continued use in the United States, and I look forward to the app being available in America under new ownership,” said Rep. John Moolenaar of Michigan, chairman of the Select Committee. House of Representatives China Affairs Committee.

Democratic Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, who co-sponsored the bill, said it was “time for ByteDance to accept” the law.

To allay the concerns of the corporate’s owners, TikTok says it has invested greater than $2 billion to strengthen user data protections within the US.

The company also argued that the federal government’s broader concerns may very well be addressed by: the draft contract he presented Biden administration over two years ago during talks between the 2 sides. He blames the federal government for refraining from further negotiations on an agreement that the Justice Department says is insufficient.

Lawyers for each firms claim that the sale of the platform is commercially and technologically inconceivable. They also say that any sale of TikTok without the specified algorithm — the platform’s secret sauce that Chinese authorities would likely block as a part of any divestment plan — would turn the U.S. version of TikTok into an island cut off from other global content.

Despite this, some investors, including Trump’s former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and billionaire Frank McCourt have expressed interest in purchasing the platform. The two men said earlier this 12 months that they were forming a consortium to acquire TikTok’s US operations.

This week, a spokesman for McCourt’s Project Liberty initiative, which goals to protect online privacy, said anonymous participants of their offer had made informal pledges of greater than $20 billion.