TikTok turns to US supreme court in last-ditch bid to avert divest-or-ban law
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Firm and parent company ByteDance file request for injunction to halt ban of app used by 170 million Americans. TikTok made a last-ditch effort on Monday to continue operating in the United States, asking the US supreme court to temporarily block a law intended to force ByteDance, its China-based parent company, to divest the short-video app by 19 January or face a ban.
TikTok and ByteDance filed an emergency request to the justices for an injunction to halt the looming ban on the social media app used by about 170 million Americans while they appeal a lower court’s ruling that upheld the law. A group of US users of the app filed a similar request on Monday as well.
Congress passed the law in April. The justice department has said that as a Chinese company, TikTok poses “a national-security threat of immense depth and scale” because of its access to vast amounts of data on American users, from locations to private messages, and its ability to secretly manipulate content that Americans view on the app.
The US court of appeals for the District of Columbia circuit in Washington on 6 December rejected TikTok’s arguments that the law violates free speech protections under the US constitution’s first amendment. In their filing to the supreme court, TikTok and ByteDance said: “If Americans, duly informed of the alleged risks of ‘covert’ content manipulation, choose to continue viewing content on TikTok with their eyes wide open, the first amendment entrusts them with making that choice, free from the government’s censorship.”.