US court rejects TikTok request to temporarily halt pending US ban

A US appeals court rejected an emergency bid by TikTok to temporarily block a law that would require its Chinese parent company ByteDance to divest of the short-video app by 19 January or face a ban on the app.

TikTok and ByteDance on Monday filed the emergency motion with the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, asking for more time to make their case to the US Supreme Court.

Today's ruling means that TikTok now must quickly move to the Supreme Court in an attempt to halt the pending ban.

The companies had warned that without court action, the law will "shut down TikTok - one of the nation's most popular speech platforms - for its more than 170 million domestic monthly users."

"The petitioners have not identified any case in which a court, after rejecting a constitutional challenge to an Act of Congress, has enjoined the Act from going into effect while review is sought in the Supreme Court," Friday's court order said.

TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Under the law, TikTok will be banned unless ByteDance divests it by 19 January. The law also gives the US government sweeping powers to ban other foreign-owned apps that could raise concerns about collection of Americans' data.

The US Justice Department argues "continued Chinese control of the TikTok application poses a continuing threat to national security."

TikTok says the Justice Department has misstated the social media app's ties to China, arguing its content recommendation engine and user data are stored in the US on cloud servers operated by Oracle while content moderation decisions that affect US users are made in the U.S.

The decision - unless the Supreme Court reverses it - puts TikTok's fate first in the hands of Democratic President Joe Biden on whether to grant a 90-day extension of the 19 January deadline to force a sale and then of Republican President-elect Donald Trump, who takes office on 20 January.

Trump, who unsuccessfully tried to ban TikTok during his first term in 2020, said before the November presidential election he would not allow the ban on TikTok.

- Reuters