US appeals court upholds TikTok law forcing its sale

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. federal appeals court on Friday upheld a law requiring Chinese-based ByteDance to divest its popular short video app TikTok in the United States by early next year or face a ban.

The ruling could be appealed to the Supreme Court or full appeals court panel.

U.S. appeals court Judges Sri Srinivasan, Neomi Rao and Douglas Ginsburg considered the legal challenges brought by TikTok and users against the law that gives ByteDance until Jan. 19 to sell or divest TikTok's U.S. assets or face a ban.

President Joe Biden, who signed the law in April, can grant a one-time extension of up to 90 days, but only if ByteDance has made significant progress in finding a buyer.

The Justice Department says under Chinese ownership, TikTok poses a serious national security threat because of its access to vast personal data of Americans, asserting China can covertly manipulate information that Americans consume via TikTok.

TikTok and ByteDance argue the law is unconstitutional and violates Americans' free speech rights. They call it "a radical departure from this country's tradition of championing an open Internet."

President-elect Donald Trump, who unsuccessfully tried to ban TikTok during his first term in 2020, said before the November elections he would not allow the ban on TikTok, which is used by 170 million Americans

The law prohibits app stores like Apple and Alphabet's Google from offering TikTok and bars internet hosting services from supporting TikTok unless ByteDance divests TikTok by the deadline.



(Reporting by David Shepardson, Chris Sanders and Mike Scarcella; Editing by Marguerita Choy)