On Monday, TikTok and ByteDance filed an emergency motion with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, seeking additional time to prepare their Supreme Court arguments.
The companies warned that absent judicial intervention, the legislation would effectively cease operations of TikTok, a leading domestic platform for expression boasting over 170 million monthly active users.
However, the court rejected their motion, citing the lack of precedent for a court to prevent enforcement of a federal law following the dismissal of a constitutional challenge, pending Supreme Court review, as detailed in Friday's unanimous decision.
In response to the ruling, a TikTok representative indicated that the company intends to escalate the matter to the Supreme Court, which has a well-documented history of safeguarding Americans' free speech rights.
According to the law, TikTok will face a ban unless ByteDance divests its ownership by January 19. Additionally, the legislation grants the U.S. government extensive authority to prohibit other foreign-owned applications that may pose risks regarding the collection of American data.
The U.S. Justice Department contends that "ongoing Chinese control of the TikTok application represents a persistent threat to national security."
In contrast, TikTok asserts that the Justice Department has misrepresented the app's connections to China, emphasizing that its content recommendation system and user data are stored in the U.S. on Oracle-operated cloud servers, while content moderation decisions affecting U.S. users are made domestically.
Barring Supreme Court intervention, the ruling vests TikTok's future largely in President Biden's hands. He must determine whether to grant a 90-day extension to the January 19th sale deadline.
Subsequently, President-elect Trump will assume office on January 20th. President Trump, whose prior attempts to ban TikTok in 2020 proved unsuccessful, indicated before the November election that he would not support a ban.