TikTok's Fate in the US Sealed by Appeals Court

The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has upheld a previous ruling in favor of the US government in its case against TikTok. This decision confirms that the Chinese tech company ByteDance Ltd., TikTok's owner, must divest the social media app by January 19 or face its closure in the US on national security grounds.

The court emphasized the "significant implications" of this ruling for TikTok and its users. It placed the responsibility for this outcome on the Chinese government's "hybrid commercial threat to US national security." The court also noted that the US government had "engaged with TikTok through a multi-year process in an effort to find an alternative solution." The decision was made to protect freedom of speech from a "foreign adversary nation and to limit that adversary's ability to gather data" of US citizens.