TikTok asks Supreme Court to block U.S. ban pending appeal

TikTok asked the Supreme Court on Monday to temporarily block a potential ban on the popular social media app pending an appeal of a lower-court ruling.

The request came days after a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., refused to issue that injunction in favor of the app, which is used by 170 million Americans.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals in D.C. on Dec. 6 upheld a federal law that will require China-based ByteDance to sell TikTok by Jan. 19 or face an effective ban in the United States.

The appeals court cited national concerns raised by members of Congress who backed the law.

In its request Monday to the Supreme Court, TikTok’s lawyers wrote, “Congress has enacted a massive and unprecedented speech restriction. TikTok is an online platform that is one of the Nation’s most popular and important venues for communication.”

The company’s attorneys argued there is a “strong public interest” in having the Supreme Court review the appeals court ruling upholding the law in question, the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act.

“The Act will shutter one of America’s most popular speech platforms the day before a presidential inauguration,” the filing said. “This, in turn, will silence the speech of Applicants and the many Americans who use the platform to communicate about politics, commerce, arts, and other matters of public concern.”

In a statement posted on its X social media account, TikTok Policy said, “The Supreme Court has an established record of upholding Americans’ right to free speech.”

“Today, we are asking the Court to do what it has traditionally done in free speech cases: apply the most rigorous scrutiny to speech bans and conclude that it violates the First Amendment,” the statement said.

The same post said estimates show that if TikTok is banned, small businesses that use the app will lose more than $1 billion in revenue in just one month, and creators will lose nearly $300 million in earnings in one month.

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