Tik Tok Resorts to Supreme Court in last Attempt to Avoid Ban in US

TikTok has resorted to the U.S. Supreme Court as a last resort to continue its operations in the United States, asking it to temporarily block a law that requires Byte Dance, the Chinese company that owns the app, to withdraw its investments from applying short videos from the country by January 19 or face the ban.

TikTok and ByteDance filed an emergency request for judges to issue an injunction to stop the imminent ban on the social media app used by about 170 million Americans during their appeal against the lower court ruling that upheld the law, and a group of users of the application in the United States also filed a similar request on Monday.

Congress passed the law in April, and the Justice Department said TikTok, as a Chinese company, posed a "large-scale national security threat" because of its access to vast amounts of data about American users, from websites to private messages, and its ability to secretly manipulate content that Americans see on the app.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in Washington rejected TikTok's argues that the law violates the protection of freedom of expression under the First Amendment to the US Constitution.

“If Americans, who have been informed of the alleged risks of manipulating (secret) content, choose to continue viewing content on TikTok with great interest and focus, the First Amendment entitles them to this choice, without government oversight,” TikTok and ByteDance said in their application to the Supreme Court.

“If the disregarding position of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals remains the same, Congress will be free to prevent any American from speaking by identifying some of the risks that speaking will be affected by a foreign entity,” the companies said.

The two companies said their ban for just one month would result in TikTok losing about a third of its users in the United States and undermine its ability to attract advertisers and hire talented content creators and employees.

Tik Tok, which describes itself as one of the "most important platforms" used in the United States, said there was no imminent threat to American national security and that delaying law enforcement would allow the Supreme Court to consider the legitimacy of the ban, and would also allow the new administration of President-elect Donald Trump to evaluate the law as well.

The two companies added in their request that the law “will shut down one of America's most popular platforms of expression the day before the president's inauguration.”