The ban on TikTok will not be delayed. Here’s what you need to know

CNN
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TikTok plans to file another appeal against the ban on January 19.

DC Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday rejected a temporary suspension on the ban on TikTok, calling the ban “unfair” and paving the way for the Supreme Court to decide the fate of the popular video-sharing app.

In April, President Joe Biden he signed an invoice It became law requiring the sale of TikTok, which is owned by Beijing-based ByteDance, to a non-Chinese company. The latest ruling follows last week’s decision by the same appeals court uphold the lawciting national security concerns.

The Biden administration previously asked the appeals court not to grant a temporary block on the law, arguing that the company could wait months to appeal the case to the Supreme Court, stalling the law indefinitely.

“The Supreme Court has a historic record of protecting Americans’ right to free speech, and we hope they will do so in this important constitutional matter,” TikTok spokesman Michael Hughes said on Dec. 6.

The Supreme Court can make a quick decision on the case. TikTok and the federal government had previously asked the appeals court to speed up its ruling so the case could be appealed before the January 19 ban.

But the Supreme Court, which has a conservative six-justice majority, is likely to uphold the ban, Josh Schiller, a partner at the law firm Boies Schiller Flexner, told CNN earlier this month.

“I have trouble thinking that the conservative force on the Supreme Court wouldn’t see this as a (national) security case,” Schiller said.

Gautam Hans, associate director of the First Amendment Clinic and professor at Cornell Law School, told CNN earlier this month that the Supreme Court may decide not to review the case at all, in which case TikTok is out of luck.

Not necessarily.

The Justice Department said on Wednesday that if the ban goes into effect, it would not “directly prohibit the continued use of TikTok” by the app’s more than 170 million monthly users. But don’t expect any more app updates or downloads if the ban happens.

The two leaders of the US House of Representatives’ China Committee sent a letter to the executives of Apple and Google’s parent company Alphabet. remove TikTok from US app stores on January 19

TikTok will also not be available on internet hosting platforms. The Department of Justice has warned that users can expect the app to “eventually” become inoperable.

There is still hope that TikTok can be active in the United States, even if ByteDance has done so stated before will not sell

The ban legislation allows Biden to grant a 90-day extension if he determines that a company has made progress toward a sale. He has not proposed any intention to do so.

President-elect Donald Trump, who begins his term a day after the ban, could be in favor of TikTok. He said in July (in a video posted on the app) that he would “never ban TikTok” — even though he tried to ban it during his first term.

There are a few options: Trump could ask Congress to repeal the law, though experts say he’s unlikely to succeed. It could also announce to the attorney general that the law is not being enforced or that TikTok is not subject to the law, said Alan Rozenshtein, an associate professor of law at the University of Minnesota. he told CNN last month.