In the US TikTok will be banned in January

Updated Friday, December 6th: TikTok is one step closer to being banned in the United States after a federal panel upheld the legality of a law that could remove the app by mid-January. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia rejected TikTok’s petition to overturn the legislation, dealing a significant blow to the platform, which is used by over 170 million Americans. The law, signed in April, requires ByteDance to sell TikTok to a non-Chinese company by January 19 to avoid the ban. The decision has raised concerns among free speech advocates and creators, but ByteDance claims a sale is impossible due to opposition from the Chinese government. A potential appeal to the Supreme Court is now being considered, while the app’s future and Donald Trump’s next steps remain uncertain, despite his prior pledge to intervene and save it.

Almost a year has passed since the first American hearing for the TikTok ban, when the House Energy and Commerce Committee questioned CEO Shou Zi Chew about user data usage. TikTok's CEO will be a guest of honor at the Met Gala, but yesterday the U.S. House of Representatives reportedly passed a bill to fully ban the app's access on U.S. soil or its sale to an American company. According to congressional sources, the company behind the social platform ByteDance is collecting personal information from TikTok's 170 million American users for political purposes. Hence, a new draft named Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act has been introduced, which would compel ByteDance to sell or remove TikTok from U.S. App Stores. Despite passing in Congress, the fate of the new law against TikTok now lies with the Senate.

In the House of Representatives, a majority of 352 bodies voted in favor of the TikTok ban, but in the Senate, it may not receive as much approval. Kentucky Senator Rand Paul has declared fierce opposition to the law, as it could deter young people from voting and violate the First Amendment to freedom of speech. On the other hand, should the bill reach the President, Joe Biden has confirmed his support, leaving ByteDance at a crossroads: sell the app to an American company or remove it from all U.S. App Stores. Initially, in 2020, it was Microsoft that showed interest in acquiring the platform, but even though it was ultimately Oracle who came close to sealing the deal, TikTok was not sold. Therefore, the issue now is even more complex than it was four years ago: the app's price has skyrocketed, but if forced to sell, it could plummet. It's unpredictable what would happen on the streets of the country if TikTok vanished from all American phones: last spring, after the March hearing, ByteDance had invited some creators to speak out on the issue in front of the Capitol.