TikTok Banned in America
By Zion Ligi, December 6th 2024
A federal appeals court recently upheld a law that could ban TikTok across the United States unless its parent company, ByteDance, sells it. The court decided that TikTok's ownership by a Chinese company poses a national security threat that is more important than the free speech rights of its millions of American users. The judges said the government actions were to protect the freedom of Americans from possible data collection by a foreign adversary.
Under this ruling, TikTok has until January 19, 2025, to be sold off from ByteDance or face a nationwide ban. There is a possibility of an extension by 90 days if there is "significant progress" toward selling the app. President-elect Donald Trump promised to save TikTok, but how he would do this is not yet clear. He may try to negotiate an agreement to sell TikTok to an American company or argue that TikTok's efforts to protect American users' data, such as Project Texas, are sufficient to satisfy the law. Trump could tell his attorney general not to enforce the law.
Critics of the ban, including the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, have concerns about the court's decision. They believe it gives the government too much power to limit Americans' access to information and media from other countries. If the law goes into effect, TikTok could be removed from app stores controlled by Apple and Google; it would become illegal for web-hosting companies to support it. That would mean, while TikTok may still appear on users' devices, it will eventually stop receiving updates, slow down, and become glitchy until it is no longer usable for 170 million American users.
As this situation develops, it is not yet clear how TikTok will respond, or how tech companies like Apple and Google will handle the new law. The future of TikTok in America remains in limbo as legal battles may continue.
