WASHINGTON (Reuters) – China-based ByteDance and its short-video app TikTok on Monday asked a U.S. appeals court to temporarily block a lawsuit requiring ByteDance to sell TikTok by 19 January or face a ban, pending review by the United States Supreme Court.
The companies filed the emergency request with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, warning that without the order, the law will go into effect and “shut down TikTok — one of the country’s most popular speech platforms — to its users. more than 170 million monthly home users on the eve of the presidential inauguration.”
On Friday (06), a panel of three appeals court judges upheld the law that requires it by early next year or face a ban in just six weeks.
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Lawyers for the companies said the prospect of the Supreme Court taking up the case “and reversing it is high enough to justify the temporary pause necessary to create time for further deliberation.”
The companies also noted that President-elect Donald Trump has promised to stop the ban, arguing that the delay “will give the new administration time to determine its position — which could negate both the imminent harm and the need for Supreme Court review.”
The Justice Department did not immediately comment.
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The decision — unless the Supreme Court reverses it — puts TikTok’s fate in the hands of US President Joe Biden, who will decide whether to grant a 90-day extension of the January 19 deadline to force a sale, and then to Trump, who takes office on January 20th. But it’s unclear whether ByteDance could meet the heavy burden of showing it has made significant progress toward a divestiture necessary to trigger the extension.
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Trump, who unsuccessfully tried to ban TikTok during his first term in 2020, said before November’s presidential election that he would not allow a ban on the app.
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The ruling upholds the law that gives the U.S. government sweeping powers to ban other foreign-owned apps that may raise concerns about collecting data from Americans. In 2020, Trump also tried to ban WeChat, owned by Tencent, but lost in court.
