US lawmakers have officially instructed Google and Apple to prepare to remove TikTok from their app stores by January 19, 2025, following a unanimous court ruling that upheld the law banning the social media platform from operating in the US.
On December 6, the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (DC Circuit) rejected all constitutional challenges raised by TikTok, backing the government’s law, signed by President Joe Biden, to require the social media platform’s divestiture.
TikTok and its parent company ByteDance subsequently filed an emergency motion on December 9, asking for a temporary injunction to delay the law.
In response, the US Justice Department on Thursday (December 11) urged the court to deny ByteDance and TikTok’s motion to delay the law, arguing that they “offer no valid reason to pretermit the Supreme Court’s prerogative to decide how proceedings before that Court should play out.”
Most recently on Friday (December 13), the US House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party sent letters to Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Apple CEO Tim Cook, emphasizing that the companies must take necessary steps to comply with the law.
“As you know, without a qualified divestiture, the Act makes it unlawful to ‘[p]rovid[e] services to distribute, maintain, or update such foreign adversary controlled application… by means of a marketplace.”
US House Select Committee
“As you know, without a qualified divestiture, the Act makes it unlawful to ‘[p]rovid[e] services to distribute, maintain, or update such foreign adversary controlled application (including any source code of such application) by means of a marketplace (including an online mobile application store) through which users within the land or maritime borders of the United States may access, maintain, or update such application,” the House Committee said.
In letters sent to Apple and Google’s CEOs, as well as to TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew, the House Committee said the DC Circuit’s ruling stated that the First Amendment protects free speech, and in this case, the government’s action aims to protect that freedom from potential foreign adversary influence.
On April 24, 2024, TikTok was given 233 days to come up with a solution that addresses national security concerns, with the threat of being removed from US app stores looming if it fails to comply.
“Congress has acted decisively to defend the national security of the United States and protect TikTok’s American users from the Chinese Communist Party. We urge TikTok to immediately execute a qualified divestiture,” the lawmakers said in the letter addressed to Shou Zi Chew.
In separate letters to Apple and Google’s CEOs, the House Committee said they “must take the necessary steps to ensure it can fully comply with this requirement by January 19, 2025.”
TikTok has said that it will appeal its case to the Supreme Court, saying “The Supreme Court should have an opportunity, as the only court with appellate jurisdiction over this action, to decide whether to review this exceptionally important case.”
Unless the Supreme Court intervenes or ByteDance sells TikTok by January 19, app stores will have to remove TikTok and block updates. While current users may initially access it, the app could eventually become unusable.
However, President-elect Donald Trump, who originally proposed a TikTok ban during his previous administration, could offer a lifeline to TikTok. News outlets reported in November, citing sources, that Trump is expected to take measures to retain the video streaming platform’s presence in the US when he returns to office.
Meanwhile, The Information reports that Bobby Kotick, the former CEO of Activision Blizzard, is still interested in buying TikTok. The newswire said, citing sources familiar with his plans, that Kotick is waiting for Trump to assume office before taking action. Kotick first expressed his plans to acquire TikTok earlier this year.
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