U.S. Court of Appeals to Hear Legal Challenges to Possible TikTok Ban
By Movieguide® Contributor
TikTok is doing all it can to avoid being banned on Jan. 19, 2025.
Earlier this year, President Biden signed the Protecting Americans’ Data From Foreign Adversaries Act of 2024 into law.
Movieguide® reported:
The legislation, called the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, demands that TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, divest the platform. If it doesn’t within 180 days, the app would be banned in American app stores.
CNBC reports that it received bipartisan support, passing with a 352-65 vote.
However, to fight the potential ban, eight TikTok creators announced that they are suing, “arguing that the measure would strip them of their livelihoods and creative outlets,” per The Verge.
Now, “The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ordered the case set for oral arguments in September after TikTok, ByteDance and a group of TikTok content creators joined with the Justice Department earlier this month in asking the court for a quick schedule,” the New York Post reported.
TikTok and ByteDance, the app’s parent company, have until June 20 to file their legal briefs.
The Justice Department must file theirs by July 26. Both company’s replies are due by Aug. 15.
Per Reuters, “TikTok said that with a fast-track schedule it believes the legal challenge can be resolved without it needing to request emergency preliminary injunctive relief. TikTok and the Justice Department have sought a ruling by Dec. 6 in order to seek review from the Supreme Court if needed.”
While TikTok and creators claim the ban is unconstitutional and will harm livelihoods, the legislation was passed because of “concerns that the Chinese government could access sensitive user data through the short-form video app TikTok.”
The U.S. is not the only country that has made an effort to ban TikTok.
In 2020, India decided to ban the app, and their “government there cracked down on hundreds of Chinese-owned apps, claiming in part that they were secretly transmitting users’ data to foreign servers,” the New York Times reported.
Other places have banned the app in some way as well: “Britain and its Parliament, Australia, Canada, the executive arm of the European Union, France and New Zealand’s Parliament — have banned the app from official devices. Taiwan’s minister of digital affairs recently declared TikTok a dangerous product representing a national security threat.”
While TikTok is facing a ban, other platforms are hoping to expand their reach. Movieguide® reported:
With a TikTok ban looming, competitors are looking to draw in new users as Americans begin seeking alternative short-form content apps.
One such app is Clapper, a social media platform that has started to gain significant traction since President Biden signed the TikTok ban into law. Clapper currently averages 300,000 daily active users and 2 million monthly users; however, it is now seeing roughly 200,000 new downloads a week.
“Compared to TikTok, we are still in the very early stage, because they have a billion monthly active users,” said Edison Chen, the founder and CEO of Clapper. “So we are more like a virtual community targeting more for mature Gen X and Y.”
While the app centers around short-form content, similar to TikTok, its defining feature is that it looks to serve an older audience, a demographic Chen believes is underserved. Users are required to be older than 17, and the platform’s guidelines call for age-appropriate, mature behavior.
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