The court upholds the law ordering ByteDance to sell the app

A federal appeals court on Friday upheld a law requiring China-based ByteDance to sell TikTok or face an effective ban in the United States.

The ruling was rejected by a three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals in Washington, DC TikTok’s argument that the ban signed into law by President Joe Biden in April is unconstitutional and violates the First Amendment rights of the 170 million Americans who use the popular social media service.

If ByteDance fails to sell TikTok by January 19, the law would require app store companies like Apple and Google, as well as internet hosting providers, to stop supporting TikTok, effectively banning the app would have.

The court noted in its majority opinion that the U.S. government had presented “compelling evidence that” the divestment law was “narrowly tailored to protect national security.”

And that statement noted that TikTok “never directly denies that it has ever manipulated content at the direction of the “People’s Republic of China.”

Lawmakers from both parties cited concerns about national security issues related to TikTok’s alleged ties to the Chinese government as the reason for banning the app.

“On the merits, we reject all of plaintiffs’ constitutional claims,” appeals court Judge Douglas Ginsburg wrote in the opinion justifying the ruling.

“As we shall explain, the parts of the law which are properly before this court do not contravene the first
Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, nor violate the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection of the laws; constitute an illegal warrant of execution … or constitute a gratuitous takeover
“Private property is a violation of the Fifth Amendment,” the statement said.

“The law was the culmination of extensive, bipartisan action by Congress and successive presidents. “It was carefully crafted to address only control by a foreign adversary and was part of a broader effort to counter a well-founded national security threat posed by the PRC,” the statement said.

Rep. Troy Balderson, R-Ohio, in March called TikTok “a surveillance tool used by the Chinese Communist Party to spy on Americans and collect highly personal information.”

President-elect Donald Trump has not yet said whether his administration will enforce the ban when he takes office next month.

In a September post on Truth Social, Trump said he was “not doing anything with TikTok, but the other side is going to shut it down, so if you like TikTok, go out and vote for Trump.”

Trump-Vance transition spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt told CNBC in November that the president-elect would “make good” on his campaign promises.

TikTok and ByteDance can request that their appeal be reconsidered by all judges in the D.C. Federal District, but such requests are often denied.

The company may petition the U.S. Supreme Court to rule on the case, but there is no automatic right to appeal to that court.

A source close to the company told NBC News that the company will seek an injunction pending a planned petition for the Supreme Court to take up the case.

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