TikTok is set to begin its fight against a possible ban in the United States. The social media company will have a crucial day in court on Monday, Sept. 16.
A federal appeals court will hear arguments about the law, signed by President Joe Biden in April, that would essentially ban TikTok if its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, doesn’t sell the platform. TikTok will have about 15 minutes to make an oral argument, which “could well be the most significant of TikTok’s U.S. existence,” CNN noted.
That’s because the whole process is on a pretty tight timeline. A decision in TikTok v. Garland is likely by December, though the potential for more appeals remains.
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The government’s argument centers on the notion that U.S. citizens are put at risk because it is possible that the Chinese government could compel ByteDance to hand over their data. As The Verge reported in a detailed breakdown of the case, a good portion of the government’s case centers on dozens of redacted classified materials—meaning only the government and the panel of judges have seen the apparent evidence. Much of the most seemingly compelling information in the case has been redacted from the public.
There’s a bit of irony there, considering the entire case centers on freedom of speech. TikTok, meanwhile, has argued that it doesn’t have precise info on users, and U.S. data is stored in the U.S.
The court case centers on whether a potential threat from a foreign nation negates some 170 million U.S. citizens’ right to use a platform of expression.
ByteDance must sell by Jan. 19, so you can expect some movement on the case in the months to come.