Court approves TikTok ban in US unless chinese owners sell

New York (The Uttam Hindu): An appeals court has cleared the path for a potential ban on TikTok in the United States unless its Chinese owners sell the platform by January 19. The court upheld a law passed by Congress to protect national security. On Friday, the court dismissed TikTok's appeal, rejecting the company's claim that the law infringed on constitutional rights, particularly the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of speech. Judge Douglas Ginsburg, writing the majority opinion, stated, "The government acted solely to protect that freedom from a foreign adversary nation and to limit that adversary's ability to gather data on people in the US." Attorney General Merrick Garland, whose department defended the law, welcomed the decision. He said, "Today's ruling is a significant step toward blocking the Chinese government from using TikTok to collect sensitive data from millions of Americans, manipulate content for US audiences, and jeopardize our national security." ByteDance, the Chinese parent company of TikTok, expressed its intention to appeal the decision to the Supreme Court. Despite this, TikTok remains popular in the US, with around 170 million users.

Under the law, passed in April and signed by President Joe Biden, app stores like Google and Apple will be prohibited from offering TikTok in the US, and internet hosting services must stop supporting it by January 19. If these companies do not comply, they could face fines up to $5,000 per user who accesses TikTok. The January 19 deadline is significant as it falls two days before Donald Trump, who had previously supported the ban but later changed his stance, takes office again. He could request Congress to reverse the law or make changes to ByteDance's ownership to comply with it. In 2020, Trump had ordered TikTok to sell or face a ban, citing national security concerns, but a court later blocked the order. President Biden revoked Trump's executive order but allowed Congress to pass legislation requiring the sale. In the Washington DC Court of Appeals, the three-judge panel included two Indian Americans. Judge Naomi Rao agreed with Ginsburg's decision, while Chief Judge Srinath Srinivasan wrote a separate opinion also supporting the ban. India had banned TikTok and 58 other apps in 2020, citing national security reasons.