The Federal Court of Appeals confirmed this Friday in a ruling the ban of TikTok in the United States. Joe Biden announced in April that the North American firm would be banned for “violating the First Amendment rights of 170 million Americans who use the application.” The argument comes, mainly, from the violation of privacy and use of data by a foreign group such as the Chinese company, Bytedance.
Once the measure is confirmed, TikTok will have to be sold to another company before January 19. If an agreement cannot be reached, all mobile application stores, such as those of Apple and Google, will have to withdraw it from them, immediately removing access to all North Americans. Ohio Republican Rep. Troy Balderson called TikTok “a surveillance tool used by the Chinese Communist Party to spy on Americans and collect highly personal data.”
A three-judge panel in Washington unanimously upheld a new US law enacted to protect national security and user privacy, ruling that it did not violate free speech protections under the First Amendment of the Constitution. The decision leaves the Supreme Court as the company’s last hope to prevent the law from taking effect.
More than 170 million Americans use TikTok as a source of entertainment and information or as a platform to build their businesses. A Pew Research survey published in September showed that about 17% of American adults regularly receive news through the app, which is a five-fold increase from 2020.
Several congressmen said the legislation was necessary to prevent China from using the app to obtain information on American citizens or spread propaganda. The US government offered no evidence that China had used the app to influence US citizens or steal data as part of the case. TikTok has argued that the law tramples on free speech rights by silencing users, even as foreign-owned media outlets continue to operate in the United States.
The prospect of Americans being banned from using TikTok has also sparked a backlash from users. Only 32% of American adults support the ban, according to a recent Pew survey. Among those likely to benefit from a TikTok ban are Alphabet’s Google (Google’s parent), Meta, and Snap.
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