By Julie Clover
Popular social media platform TikTok has failed to gain a stay from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and still faces a ban set to go into effect in January, The Wall Street Journal reports.
TikTok and several social media users have challenged an April bill that would force Chinese company ByteDance to sell TikTok. The bill would have given ByteDance nine months to sell TikTok outside of China, and if the sale failed, TikTok would not be able to be distributed in the United States.
TikTok argued that the bill was unconstitutional because it violated free speech, but the court rejected that claim.
While the ban is set to go into effect in January, TikTok will likely appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, seeking an emergency stay. The Supreme Court will then decide whether to hear the case.
If TikTok is banned, Google, Apple, and other app distributors will not be able to make the app available for download or offer updates to the app. Internet hosting services will also be prohibited from supporting the app, preventing U.S. users from downloading it. However, TikTok users will be able to continue to use the app as long as it remains operational.
ByteDance has no plans to sell TikTok, and even if the company complies with this demand and does so, China would need to approve the sale. The Chinese government has made it clear that it would vigorously oppose any sale of the TikTok app. ByteDance says it would be impossible to transfer TikTok’s source code to a new owner because it would take years for new engineers to become familiar enough with it to perform routine maintenance.
US lawmakers want to sell TikTok to a non-Chinese company amid concerns that the Chinese government could force ByteDance to hand over user data in the United States, and there has been speculation that China could use TikTok to spread political propaganda.
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