A federal appeals court has left in place a mid-January deadline in a federal law requiring TikTok to be sold or face a ban in the United States
A federal appeals court on Friday left in place a mid-January deadline in a federal law requiring TikTok to be sold or face a ban in the United States, rejecting a request made by the company to halt enforcement until the Supreme Court reviews its challenge of the statute.
Attorneys for TikTok and its China-based parent company, ByteDance, are expected to appeal to the Supreme Court.
It’s unclear if the nation's highest court will take up the case, though some legal experts have said they expect the justices to weigh in due to the types of novel questions it raises about social media, national security and the First Amendment. TikTok is also looking for a potential lifeline from President-elect Donald Trump, who promised to “save” the short-form video platform during the presidential campaign.
Attorneys for TikTok and ByteDance had requested the injunction after a panel of three judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit sided with the U.S. government and rejected their challenge to the law.
The court rejected that request on Friday, calling it “unwarranted."
“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,” said the court's order, which was unsigned.
The statute, which was signed by President Joe Biden earlier this year, requires ByteDance to sell TikTok to an approved buyer due to national security concerns or face a ban in the U.S.
The U.S. has said it sees TikTok as a
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