The clock is ticking on TikTok’s efforts to stay alive in the US. Ten days ago a federal appears court upheld the law which would ban the app unless the Chinese company that owns it, ByteDance, sells it to an owner who isn’t connected to a hostile foreign government.
In a majority opinion, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said, “We recognize that this decision has significant implications for TikTok and its users.” If the platform does not divest, the court said it “will effectively be unavailable in the United States, at least for a time.”
The reasoning for the decision was pretty simple. The First Amendment is designed to protect speech in the US and Congress has decided TikTok’s owner is a potential threat.
“The First Amendment exists to protect free speech in the United States,” Judge Douglas H. Ginsburg wrote for the…
