Published December 12. 2024
Time is running out for TikTok. Nearly eight months ago, Congress passed legislation that requires ByteDance, the social media platform’s parent company in China, to divest itself of the app by Jan. 19, 2025, or else face a ban within the entire United States. At the time, although the legislation passed by wide majorities (360-58 in the House and 79-18 in the Senate), most observers doubted that we would really see TikTok’s demise so soon. For more than two decades, the courts have been overwhelmingly friendly to Big Tech, buying its arguments that the only way to protect the First Amendment is to leave the internet essentially deregulated. Rather than seeking a buyer for TikTok then, ByteDance was determined to fight the ban in court.
Last week, its case ran into a brick wall at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which ruled unanimously in support of the legislation. “The First Amendment exists to protect free speech in the United States,” wrote Judge Douglas Ginsburg for the majority. “Here the Government acted solely to protect that freedom from a foreign adversary nation and to limit that adversary’s ability to gather data on people in the United States.”
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