D.C. Circuit Upholds TikTok Ban
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled Friday that a federal law banning TikTok unless its Chinese government-controlled owners divest from it is constitutional. TikTok, parent company ByteDance and a group of TikTok users had challenged the…
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Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act. The ban “does not suppress content or require a certain mix of content” but “narrowly addresses foreign adversary control of an important medium of communication in the United States,” Judge Douglas Ginsburg wrote in the majority opinion. Because the law doesn’t target content of speech on TikTok but instead the ability of China to covertly manipulate that content, it “is wholly consonant with the First Amendment,” Ginsburg wrote. The evidence and judgment of Congress and the White House that TikTok is a national security threat “is entitled to significant weight,” Ginsburg added. “In this case, a foreign government threatens to distort free speech on an important medium of communication,” and the law would end China’s control over that medium, Ginsburg said. “Understood in that way, the Act actually vindicates the values that undergird the First Amendment.” A ban of the social media platform is set to take effect Jan. 19. Unless TikTok executes a qualified divestiture by then or the White House grants it a 90-day extension before then, “its platform will effectively be unavailable in the United States, at least for a time,” said the order. President-elect Donald Trump, who opposes the TikTok ban after kicking off the effort during his first term, takes office Jan. 20. House Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., and Communications Subcommittee Chairman Bob Latta, R-Ohio, praised the D.C. Circuit ruling as “a major win for the rule of law.” House Commerce unanimously advanced the TikTok divestiture measure in March (see 2403070063). “From the beginning, Congress gave TikTok a very clear choice: Divest from your parent company -- which is beholden to the Chinese Communist Party -- and remain operational in the U.S. or side with the CCP and face the consequence,” Rodgers and Latta said. “The United States will always stand up for our values and freedom, which is why the days of TikTok targeting, surveilling, and manipulating Americans are numbered.” FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr, an early vocal proponent of the ban effort, didn’t comment.