The popular video app TikTok and its Chinese parent company ByteDance are going to the US Supreme Court to stop the threatened sale of its American parts by January 19, 2025. ByteDance announced this on Friday.
The United States wants the American parts of TikTok to be sold because of the owners’ alleged ties to the Chinese state. TikTok and parent company Bytedance have always denied these ties. Moreover, the US also wants to introduce a ban on the app. More than 170 million Americans, mostly young people, use TikTok in the United States.
TikTok and ByteDance had appealed because they believed that the law requiring sales violates the First Amendment of the US Constitution, which guarantees free speech. But the judges dismissed that argument.
“The government acted here solely to protect that freedom from a foreign enemy nation and to limit that enemy’s ability to collect data about people in the United States,” Justice Douglas Ginsburg said.
If TikTok does not agree to the forced sale, the popular video app will no longer be available in the US after January 19.
Many Western countries are concerned that Chinese authorities are abusing TikTok to obtain data from users.