Communist Chinese government-tied TikTok has lost another appeal in court but is still desperately trying to halt a federal law empowering the president to impose a national ban against it.
TikTok is still holding out hope after an appeals court affirmed last week the federal government could ban the Chinese-owned company for the sake of national security. The ruling dealt a significant blow to TikTok, which requested the case be paused as it appealed the decision to the Supreme Court and the incoming Trump administration, according to Forbes.
On Monday, in what appears to be a last-ditch effort, TikTok asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit for an injunction to halt its Friday ruling while it appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court. The law, if not halted, will require TikTok’s Chinese parent company ByteDance to sell the popular app to an American company. Otherwise, TikTok runs the risk of being effectively banned from app stores in the U.S.
As reported by TIME Magazine, TikTok claimed: “Before that happens, the Supreme Court should have an opportunity, as the only court with appellate jurisdiction over this action, to decide whether to review this exceptionally important case.” The tech company also claimed an injuction would provide a “modest delay” to give “the incoming Administration time to determine its position – which could moot both the impending harms and the need for Supreme Court review.” During his 2024 campaign, Trump expressed opposition to a hard TikTok ban.
Despite TikTok’s reassurances and pleas, the app has been exposed as a national security threat. In 2022, BuzzFeed News reported that ByteDance accessed non-public U.S. user data through TikTok and cited multiple tapes of internal meetings at TikTok. Moreover, the Chinese Communist Party owns a board seat and a financial stake in TikTok’s parent ByteDance.
Former ByteDance CEO Zhang Yiming reportedly said that he wanted to use his platform to “promote ‘socialist core values’” and the CCP. ByteDance also is among the companies that share algorithm data with the Chinese government, according to Bloomberg.
Furthermore, Yintao Yu, a former executive for ByteDance, alleged in a 2023 lawsuit that the CCP has backdoor access to TikTok user data. A group of former TikTok employees also accused the app of having close operational ties with ByteDance earlier this year. TikTok has a censorship track record as well. As of Sept. 2022, MRC revealed TikTok had “permanently banned” 11 pro-free speech organizations. And in 2023, the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party investigated TikTok's censorship of content about the anti-CCP freedom protests and the CCP response in Hong Kong.
The lawsuit came after outgoing President Joe Biden signed a law in April to force TikTok to sell to a U.S. owner or be banned, based on a congressional investigation and the above evidence highlighting TikTok’s security risks.
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