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OAN Staff Blake Wolf
5:21 PM – Friday, December 6, 2024
A federal appeals court reaffirmed TikTok’s federal ban, which is set to take effect in January if its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, does not sell its ownership.
The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit stated that the Justice Department’s ruling was “constitutional,” subsequently denying ByteDance’s petition for relief.
“We conclude the portions of the Act the petitioners have standing to challenge, that is the provisions concerning TikTok and its related entities, survive constitutional scrutiny,” wrote Senior Judge Douglas Ginsburg in the ruling. “We therefore deny the petitions.”
“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,” Ginsburg continued.
The law in question, signed by President Joe Biden in April, grants the government the authority to federally ban the app, citing national security concerns over Beijing’s potential to spy on and manipulate the more than 170 million Americans who use it.
“Today’s decision is an important step in blocking the Chinese government from weaponizing TikTok to collect sensitive information about millions of Americans, to covertly manipulate the content delivered to American audiences, and to undermine our national security,” stated Attorney General Merrick Garland following the results.
“As the D.C. Circuit recognized, this act protects the national security of the United States in a manner that is consistent with the Constitution. The Justice Department is committed to defending Americans’ sensitive data from authoritarian regimes that seek to exploit companies under their control,” he continued.
TikTok and ByteDance are now expected to take the case to the supreme court, claiming the ban was an unconstitutional “censorship of the American people.”
“Unfortunately, the TikTok ban was conceived and pushed through based upon inaccurate, flawed and hypothetical information, resulting in outright censorship of the American people,” stated TikTok spokesperson Michael Hughes, adding that the ban would “silence the voices of over 170 million Americans here in the US and around the world on January 19th, 2025.”
“The Supreme Court has an established historical record of protecting Americans’ right to free speech, and we expect they will do just that on this important constitutional issue,” he continued.
The Chinese government threatened to block the sale of TikTok’s algorithm, which provides unique content to each user depending on their clicks and interests, forcing a potential buyer to build a brand new algorithm system, even though the initial algorithm made the app popular in the first place.
“The platform consists of millions of lines of software code that have been painstakingly developed by thousands of engineers over multiple years,” the failed petition stated.
Meanwhile, there is growing optimism that President-elect Donald Trump will be able to shift control of the app over to American investors.
“I am optimistic that President Trump will facilitate an American takeover of TikTok to allow its continued use in the United States and I look forward to welcoming the app in America under new ownership,” stated Rep. John Moolenaar (R-Mich.) of Michigan, while calling the recent ruling a “loss for the Chinese Communist Party.”
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