Tik Tok forced to sell assets in US!
Washington, Dec 6 (EFE).-
A federal appeals court in the United States upheld on Friday a law that could force the social network TikTok to sell its assets to a non-Chinese company or be banned nationwide, citing national security threats posed by the platform’s data collection.
The administration of Joe Biden and members of Congress from both the Democratic and Republican parties fear that the Chinese government could use ByteDance to obtain information about users in the US and use it to influence American public opinion by manipulating what people see on the app.
However, TikTok has said that divestiture is “not possible technologically, commercially, or legally” and has challenged the law in the District of Columbia Court of Appeals in an attempt to maintain its presence in the US market, where it has 170 million users.
The three-judge panel ruled that the law passed by Congress in April, which forces TikTok to divest from its Chinese parent company ByteDance by Jan. 19 or face the ban, does not violate the right to free speech, as TikTok had argued.
“The First Amendment exists to protect free speech in the United States. Here the Government acted solely to protect that freedom from a foreign adversary nation and to limit that adversary’s ability to gather data on people in the United States. For these reasons the petitions are denied,” the panel wrote.
The platform can now appeal the court’s opinion to the US Supreme Court.
Both TikTok and the Department of Justice requested that this ruling be issued before Dec. 6 so that the high court would have time to consider any appeals before the veto takes effect.
Biden could give the company a 90-day extension, otherwise, the ban would take effect on his last day in the White House, with President-elect Donald Trump set to be inaugurated on Jan. 20.
Trump, who had tried to ban the platform during his first term in office (2017-2021), said during the election campaign that he would “save TikTok” if he won. EFE
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