US Appeals Court upholds law requiring TikTok sale

AppleInsider

China-based Bytedance has one last avenue to avoid the sale of its TikTok social media service after losing a court appeal to invalidate a US law that requires the service be sold by January 19, 2025.

TikTok's issues with the US government and courts continue.

In its decision, the US Court of Appeals noted that the law requiring the sale of TikTok was a bipartisan effort in order to counter "a well-substantiated national security threat posed by the PRC (People's Republic of China)." The US government believes that Bytedance's ownership of TikTok gives them -- and thus the Chinese government -- access to a vast trove of personal data collected from users.

TikTok will likely appeal to the Supreme Court, which could result in an extra 90-day stay on enforcement of the law if the court agrees to hear the case and President Biden approves the stay. If it refuses the appeal, TikTok could be facing a ban or forced sale in the US in early January, despite the 170 million Americans using the social media service.

A reflection of current political tensions

TikTok is considered one of the leading sources of misinformation and disinformation, alongside other social media networks like Meta's Facebook and X.com, formerly Twitter, now owned by Elon Musk. Officials in China have called the law "a blatant act of commercial robbery."

Tensions between China and the US have grown steadily because of new restrictions on China's chip industry by the Biden administration. China has responded by banning exports of certain rare earth elements to the US.

TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew has found allies in the American Civil Liberties Union, which said in a statement that banning TikTok "blatantly violates the First Amendment rights of millions of Americans who use this app to express themselves and communicate with people around the world." Chew vowed that TikTok "will continue the fight to protect free speech on our platform."

However, the appeals court found that China's influence over ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, raised the possibility of China manipulating public discourse. If the Supreme Court refuses to hear the case, ByteDance must sell the service by January 19 -- one day before President-elect Trump is sworn into office for his second term.

During his previous term as President, Trump was in favor of forcing ByteDance to sell TikTok, but he has recently said he is now opposed to the deal. Trump also tried to ban Tencent-owned WeChat in 2020, but legal efforts blocked his administration from enforcing the order.



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kmarei

"TikTok is considered one of the leading sources of misinformation and disinformation"
It's also the only big social media platform the US government doesn't control...

we always talk about free competition
 But we don't really like it when the other team is winning now do we?

flydog

kmarei said:

"TikTok is considered one of the leading sources of misinformation and disinformation"
It's also the only big social media platform the US government doesn't control...

we always talk about free competition
 But we don't really like it when the other team is winning now do we?

All cats can fly.

Adam is a cat.

Therefore, Adam can fly.

9secondkox2

The only real issue with tik tok is the hyper-invasiveness of the app. No app should be able to collect that level of data just to use it. 

The connection to China makes it worse. 

If it were different, I’d feel bad for the company. But it’s not. And I don’t. 

Tencent/epic needs looking into also. Interestingly, tencent bought almost half of epic games and their 3d engine is in most American tech including automobiles. Trouble soon followed with epic ceo trying to upend consumer-protective features like the App Store and forcing a company to basically offer free advertising, digital warehousing, and serving - and not getting a cut in some instances despite the overhead. 

Needs looking into as well. 

baconstang

The ACLU is sooo cute!  They still think it's 1965...

foregoneconclusion

FYI: foreign countries can simply buy data on Americans from data brokers. 

Appleish

The Russian Asset will save them. He's deep in the pocket of their biggest American investor. The next White House will be bribery central of the world.

jfabula1

Appleish said:

The Russian Asset will save them. He's deep in the pocket of their biggest American investor. The next White House will be bribery central of the world.

Ok….election is done, get over it

chasm

jfabula1 said:

Ok….election is done, get over it

So because the election has been decided, people can’t predict what the next President and their administration will likely do, based on their previous track record?

People can’t criticize the incoming president preemptively, or predict/idly speculate about that person and their administration because the election is over?

You know that the incoming president has an easily accessible record from his first term, yes? So both idle and informed pontification based on him and the officials he has picked thus far seems to me to be entirely fair game, and applies equally to other high government officials, regardless of party alignment.

But we can’t discuss that because the election is over so we have to “get over it,” unlike what happened when the current president came into office …

Funny, I don’t remember an America where the election results mandate a lack of criticism not approved of by the winner. You must be living in a different America than the one I’m familiar with.

programmer

I’m surprised more people aren’t aware of how much manipulation and disinformation happens on TikTok.  It has been extensively studied and documented.  The current Romanian election was extremely heavily influenced by TikTok, to such a degree that they just annulled the whole thing!  This isn’t unique to TikTok (it happens to some extent in any media), but it is much more severe and direct.  The collection of user information isn’t great, but the actively controlling what users see is worse.  They are actively being manipulated.