Federal Court Upholds U.S. Ban on TikTok

variety.com:

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor The fight over whether TikTok remains legal in the U.S. could be heading to the Supreme Court.

On Friday, the U.S Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit upheld a federal law that will ban TikTok in the country over national security concerns — unless Chinese parent company ByteDance sells its interest in the app by Jan.

19, 2025. In the ruling, the court rejected TikTok and ByteDance’s argument that the law, called the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, violates the First Amendment rights of millions of the video app’s users. “The multi-year efforts of both political branches to investigate the national security risks posed by the TikTok platform, and to consider potential remedies proposed by TikTok, weigh heavily in favor of the Act,” the three-judge panel of the D.C.

Circuit wrote. “[T]he parts of the Act that are properly before this court do not contravene the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, nor do they violate the Fifth Amendment guarantee of equal protection of the laws.” TikTok didn’t immediately provide comment on Friday’s ruling.