TikTok asked the Supreme Court on Monday (Dec. 16) for an emergency injunction of the U.S. law that would force the app’s owner to sell it or see it banned in the country.
The company is seeking an emergency injunction pending a Supreme Court appeal of the law, TikTok said in a Monday press release announcing its emergency application to the court.
It added that it is asking the court to apply rigorous scrutiny to the law, as it has done with other “free speech bans,” and conclude that the law violates the First Amendment.
“The TikTok ban results in a massive and unprecedented censorship of over 170 million Americans on January 19, 2025,” the company said in the release. “Estimates show that small businesses on TikTok would lose more than $1 billion in revenue and creators would suffer almost $300 million in lost earnings in just one month unless the ban is halted.”
The bill was signed into law by President Joe Biden in April amid concerns that the TikTok app presented a national security threat.
On Dec. 6, a federal appeals court ruled that the law does not violate the First Amendment. The three-judge panel said the Chinese government enacted laws that allow it to access and use data held by Chinese companies.
It was reported Dec. 9 that TikTok aimed to put a hold on the law to give the new presidential administration a chance to offer up its position on the matter, something that the company said could “moot both the impending harms and the need for Supreme Court review.”
Noting the Dec. 6 ruling, the Republican and Democratic leaders of a House select committee said in Friday (Dec. 13) letters to the CEOs of TikTok, Apple and Google that TikTok should sell its app and that Apple and Google should be ready to remove TikTok from their app stores by Jan. 19 if the company does not sell it.
TikTok was the third most downloaded free app in Apple’s App Store in 2024, according to a list of the 20 most downloaded apps released Monday by Apple. TikTok had been ranked No. 5 among free iPhone apps a year earlier.
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