NEWS ALERT: Appeals court rules on law that would ban TikTok in the USA

5

For ads-free news, click here.

From CBS News: A federal appeals court upheld a law that will ban TikTok in the U.S. in the coming months if its Chinese parent company doesn’t sell its stake in the app, dealing another setback to the widely popular video-sharing service in its battle with the federal government.

A panel of three judges from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit unanimously sided with the Justice Department in declining to review the petition for relief from TikTok and ByteDance, its Chinese parent company, saying the law is constitutional.

“We conclude the portions of the Act the petitioners have standing to challenge, that is the provisions concerning TikTok and its related entities, survive constitutional scrutiny,” Senior Judge Douglas Ginsburg wrote in the majority opinion. “We therefore deny the petitions.”

Congress approved a foreign assistance package in April that included provisions giving TikTok nine months to sever ties with ByteDance or lose access to app stores and web-hosting services in the U.S. President Biden quickly signed the bill into law, and it is set to take effect on Jan. 19, with the possibility of a one-time 90-day delay granted by the president if a sale is in progress by then.


The popular social media app has come under suspicion by lawmakers from both sides of the aisle, as well as national security officials, over the company’s ties to China.

Strong concerns have been raised that the Chinese government could use TikTok to spy on and collect data from its roughly 170 million American users or covertly influence the U.S. public by amplifying or suppressing certain content, the report explains.

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) reacted to the ruling, writing, “The appeals court was right to uphold the bipartisan law forcing TikTok to be divested from Chinese Communist Party ownership. TikTok is a spy app that steals Americans’ data while pushing propaganda on our kids.”

Jason Miyares, Attorney General of Virginia, wrote, “BREAKING: A federal court just agreed with a 21-State coalition led by Virginia and Montana and upheld Congress’s statute that bans TikTok in the US unless TikTok’s parent company with ties to the Chinese Communist Party sells the platform. This decision protects Americans from the CCP accessing and exploiting their data.”

Follow us on X (Formerly Twitter.)
Dennis Michael Lynch personal: www.X.com/TrustDML
The DML News App: www.X.com/DMLNewsApp

The Dennis Michael Lynch Podcast archive is available below, with the most recent on top. Never miss an episode. Subscribe to the show by downloading The DML News App or go to Apple Podcasts.

CLICK HERE FOR COMMENTS SECTION