According to Reuters, the court ruling emphasized that its decision will lead to a TikTok ban on January 19, unless Biden extends the deadline or TikTok is sold to an American company or individual by that date.
The court ruling stated: “If TikTok is not sold, millions of American users of the app will need to find alternative means of communication.”
The court emphasized in its ruling that this was due to “China’s combined commercial threat to US national security, not the US government, which engaged with TikTok over a multi-year process to find an alternative solution.”
This opinion was written by Justice Ginsburg, an appointee of President Ronald Reagan, and was concurred in by Justice Rao, appointed by Donald Trump, and Justice Srinivasan, appointed by Barack Obama.
The US Department of Justice says that under Chinese ownership, TikTok poses a serious threat to national security due to its access to vast amounts of Americans’ personal information, and claims that China could covertly manipulate the information Americans consume through TikTok.
US officials have also warned that TikTok’s management is dependent on the Chinese government, which could force the company to share information about American users.
TikTok has denied that it has shared or will share the data of American users and in its complaint accused US lawmakers of promoting “hypothetical” concerns.
Today’s court ruling bars app stores like Apple’s and Alphabet’s Google from offering TikTok and internet hosting services from supporting TikTok unless ByteDance hands over TikTok to a US company by the deadline.