Are they banning TikTok?

There are still chances of TikTok not being banned in the US despite the company losing an appeal on Friday which required the app to sell to an American buyer and cut all ties with its Chinese parent company by January 19, failing which it would face a ban.

The social media platform had wished that the federal appeals court would be of the opinion that the law was unconstitutional as it infringes upon the free speech rights of over 170 million US citizens who use the app on a regular basis.

The video-sharing app later posted a statement where it said that they would take the fight to the highest legal authority in the United States – the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court has an established historical record of protecting the rights of Americans to free speech, and TikTok expects that this would be no different in this imperative constitutional matter, TikTok said in a statement.

The US wanted TikTok to be either be sold or banned on American soil for what it believes are the ties between between the owners and the state, a claim both TikTok and Bytedance, its parent company, have repeatedly denied.

Apart from the US Supreme Court, TikTok also has an unlikely ally in the president-elect Donald Trump, who was the first to suggest a ban on TikTok and another Chinese company WeChat back in August, 2020 as a series of his diplomatic sparring against China.

Even though he was blocked by courts, a legislature was later passed by both the US House of Representatives and the Senate to pass a bill which was signed by Joe Biden in April this year.

TikTok would likely persuade Trump, who opened a social media platform after a Twitter ban, that a ban would mostly benefit Facebook and other platforms of its parent company Meta.

Trump has been a critic of the Meta-owned platform for suppressing right-wing content. Also, both Facebook and Instagram banned Trump from their social media platforms for two years following the January 6, 2021 Capitol riots by his supporters.

Trump’s victory in the 2024 election might as well present a lifeline to the app.

He took a U-turn on his older message in the run-up to the November elections.  He would not allow the ban on TikTok to take effect.