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Chinese-based ByteDance and its short-video app TikTok asked an appeals court Monday to temporarily block a law that would require parent company ByteDance to divest TikTok by January 19 or face a ban in the United States, pending a review by the US Supreme Court.
The companies filed the emergency motion with the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, warning that without the order the law will take effect and 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.”
On Friday, a three-judge panel of the appeals court upheld the law requiring ByteDance to divest TikTok in the US by early next year or face a ban in just six weeks.
Lawyers for the companies said the prospect that the Supreme Court will take the case “and reverse is sufficiently high to warrant the temporary pause needed to create time for further deliberation.”
The companies also noted that US President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to prevent a ban, arguing the delay “will give the incoming administration time to determine its position — which could moot both the impending harms and the need for Supreme Court review.”
TikTok also warned Monday that the court ruling would interrupt “services for tens of millions of TikTok users outside the United States.” The app said hundreds of US service providers that enable maintenance, distribution and updating would not be able to provide support for the TikTok platform starting January 19.
The Justice Department said the appeals court should quickly deny the TikTok’s request “to maximize the time available for the Supreme Court’s consideration” of petitions from ByteDance and TikTok.
TikTok asked the appeals court to decide on the request by December 16.
The decision — unless the Supreme Court reverses it — puts TikTok’s fate in the hands of, first, President Joe Biden on whether to grant a 90-day extension of the January 19 deadline to force a sale and then of Trump, who takes office on January 20. But it is not clear whether ByteDance could meet the heavy burden to show it had made significant progress toward a divestiture needed to trigger the extension.
Trump, who unsuccessfully tried to ban TikTok during his first term in 2020, said before the November presidential election that he would not allow the ban on TikTok.
Trump’s incoming national security adviser Mike Waltz told Fox Business Network Friday that Trump “wants to save TikTok. We absolutely need to allow the American people to have access to that app but we have to protect our data as well.”
The decision upholds the law that gives the US government sweeping powers to ban other foreign-owned apps that could raise concerns about collection of Americans’ data. In 2020, Trump also tried to ban Tencent-owned WeChat but was blocked by the courts.
