Social media platform TikTok is appealing to the United States Supreme Court in an attempt to delay a bill that would ban the popular app.
On Wednesday, the lame-duck President Joe Biden’s Department of Justice (DOJ) requested a federal appeals court step in to deny this move.
Last Thursday, the rule was affirmed by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
This means that TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, must divest from the app or face a ban in the United States on January 19, as Fox Business reported.
The Justice Department contended that TikTok had failed to provide a compelling reason to prevent the statute from being implemented as intended by Congress.
Instead, the DOJ simply restated arguments that had previously been rejected by the appeals court.
However, these arguments are in defiance of what President Donald Trump has said he’ll support.
Furthermore, it highlighted that the parties had reached a mutually agreeable timeline.
It would provide TikTok the opportunity to submit a comparable petition to the Supreme Court.
In a statement, the government wrote:
“Petitioners are entitled to ask the Supreme Court to enjoin the law’s application pending that Court’s review, and they expressly reserved their right to do so and set a schedule that would allow time for it.
“They are not entitled, however, to an injunction against an Act of Congress when the only court to consider their constitutional challenge has rejected it,” it continued.
“The Supreme Court can decide for itself whether the statute must be enjoined.”
Last Friday, a three-judge panel from the D.C. Circuit found in favor of the government and against TikTok.
The court asserted that the law does not infringe upon the First Amendment.
On Monday, TikTok requested a stay of execution of the statute until its appeal is heard by the Supreme Court.
The company claims that the app’s 170 million American users will be impacted by the shutdown of the platform on the “eve of a presidential inauguration.”
In a statemnt, TikTok wrote:
“Before that happens, 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.”
Earlier this year, the divest-or-ban bill swiftly made its way through Congress, passing with huge bipartisan majorities in both houses.
President Biden signed it into law in April.
What Trump does with his new authority next month is, however, anyone’s guess.
Trump campaigned against the bill, saying it would be good for Facebook and other big platforms, and he promised to “save TikTok.”
However, during a weekend interview, the president-elect seemed hesitant to commit to any measures to secure the app.
“I’m going to try and make it so that other companies don’t become an even bigger monopoly,” he said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
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