A US appeals court on Friday rejected an emergency bid by TikTok to temporarily block a law that would require its Chinese parent company ByteDance to

TikTok loses emergency bid to pause law that could lead to US ban

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2024-12-14 10:30:08

A US appeals court on Friday rejected an emergency bid by TikTok to temporarily block a law that would require its Chinese parent company ByteDance to divest of the short-video app by 19 January or face a ban on the app.

TikTok and ByteDance on Monday filed the emergency motion with the US court of appeals for the District of Columbia, asking for more time to make their case to the US supreme court. Friday’s ruling means that TikTok now must quickly move to the supreme court in an attempt to halt the pending ban.

The companies had warned that without court action, the law will “shut down TikTok –> one of the nation’s most popular speech platforms –> for its more than 170 million domestic monthly users”.

“The petitioners have not identified any case in which a court, after rejecting a constitutional challenge to an Act of Congress, has enjoined the Act from going into effect while review is sought in the Supreme Court,” Friday’s court order said.

Under the law, TikTok will be banned unless ByteDance divests it by 19 January. The law also gives the US government sweeping powers to ban other foreign-owned apps that could raise concerns about collection of Americans’ data.