TikTok and Bytedance, its Beijing-based parent company, filed an emergency injunction on Monday calling for an appeals court to temporarily block the law that is set to ban the popular app from the U.S.
The delay, TikTok argued in its filing, would “create breathing room” for the U.S. Supreme Court to “conduct an orderly review” of the law, as well as give the incoming Trump administration time to evaluate the matter. TikTok pointed to president-elect Donald Trump’s comment earlier this year that he was going to “save TikTok” in its filing. The app has 170 million monthly users in the U.S., according to its filing in U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. circuit.
Time is running out for TikTok and Bytedance to find a way to remain active in the States. The app will be banned from the U.S. on January 19, 2025 — one day before Trump returns to the White House — unless its Chinese owners divest its American operations by then.
“Before that happens, the Supreme Court should have an opportunity, as the only court with appellate jurisdiction over this action, to decide whether to review this
exceptionally important case,” TikTok argued in its filing. “And an injunction is especially appropriate because it will give the incoming Administration time to determine its position—which could moot both the impending harms and the need for Supreme Court review.”
The TikTok ban was initially floated during Trump’s first administration, before ultimately being passed by Congress and signed into law by President Joe Biden earlier this year.
Monday’s appeal comes just a few days after a federal court upheld the Jan. 19 deadline for the Chinese-owned social app to sell or leave the country. TikTok has previously argued the ban would “trample” the First Amendment right to free speech of its users.
The chief concern U.S. lawmakers have with TikTok is that it doubles as a spyware app for the Chinese government; TikTok, according to Chinese law, is required to share user data with China’s communist government, if it is asked to.
Most Americans don’t seem to be too concerned with China’s government having easy access to their data, though. Only 32% of Americans are in favor of the U.S. government banning TikTok, according to a Pew Research Center survey in September of 10,678 respondents aged 18 and older. That’s down from 50% who supported a ban in March 2023 — and TikTok’s users are even less inclined to support a ban, with 61% of U.S. users opposing it. (Among those surveyed, 51% leaned towards Democrats politically, while 46% said they were Republican-leaning.)
In its Monday filing, TikTok’s lawyers asked the appeals court to rule on whether it will pause the law enforcing the ban by December 16.
