The clock is ticking for TikTok.
The massive and influential social video platform was not successful in its appeal of a bill passed earlier this year that could see the app banned in the U.S. next month.
Back in April President Biden signed into law a national security bill that would force TikTok to be sold by its owner, ByteDance, or face a possible ban in the United States.
TikTok’s CEO, Shou Zi Chew, responded that the company intended to fight that bill.
“Make no mistake, this is a ban, a ban on TikTok and a ban on you and your voice,” Chew said in a video after the bill passed. “Politicians may say otherwise. But don’t get confused.”
The tech company sued the U.S. over the bill on First Amendment grounds, a suit that the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals did not find convincing enough.
“We recognize that this decision has significant implications for TikTok and its users,” the court wrote in its decision to uphold the bill.” The First Amendment exists to protect free speech in the United States. Here 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 United States.”
The court also seemed to recognize the impact the ban could have on TikTok’s millions of users:
“Some 170 million Americans use TikTok to create and view all sorts of free expression and engage with one another and the world,” the ruling noted. “And yet, in part precisely because of the platform’s expansive reach, Congress and multiple Presidents determined that divesting it from the PRC’s control is essential to protect our national security.
“To give effect to those competing interests, Congress chose divestment as a means of paring away the PRC’s control—and thus containing the security threat—while maintaining the app and its algorithm for American users,” the ruling continued. “But if no qualifying divestment occurs—including because of the PRC’s or ByteDance’s unwillingness—many Americans may lose access to an outlet for expression, a source of community, and even a means of income.
Congress judged it necessary to assume that risk given the grave national security threats it perceived. And because the record reflects that Congress’s decision was considered, consistent with longstanding regulatory practice, and devoid of an institutional aim to suppress particular messages or ideas, we are not in a position to set it aside.”
The case pit national security concerns against First Amendment rights, and in this case, the national security concerns appear to have won out for now.
TikTok is likely to take the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, which could put the divest or ban on hold if it takes up the case. If the Supreme Court declines, however, TikTok may be banned in the country in just 44 days.