One of the world’s most popular video-sharing apps might not be on your phone next year. US ban on TikTok The bill will move forward unless Chinese-owned technology company BitTorrent relinquishes control by January 19 after an appeals court rejected its arguments against the constitutionality of the new law.
“The First Amendment exists to protect free speech in the United States,” a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit read out the ruling Friday. “The government took action with the sole purpose of protecting that freedom from a foreign adversary nation and limiting that adversary’s ability to collect data on Americans.”
Earlier this year, President Biden signed into law a TikTok ban that passed Congress as part of a foreign military aid package. The provision has since faced legal challenges, but the recent losses and looming deadline give ByteDance less time and options to avoid a blanket ban on the app used by more than 170 million Americans.
A TikTok spokesperson told NPR today that it will appeal the latest setback to the Supreme Court. Incoming President-elect Donald Trump also promised to “Learn about Douyin,” although it’s unclear what form that will take. That could mean another attempt to negotiate a sale of the app to a U.S. technology company like Microsoft or Apple. Earlier this week, Trump shared TikTok statistics on Truth Social regarding his popular McDonald’s and garbage truck videos during the campaign.
The gaming community in particular has been booming online, especially on social media, TikTok is no exception. The short-form video platform has become the first choice for many fans to watch reaction videos to the most popular new releases, such as Final Fantasy VII Reborn and Dragon Ball: Spark Zeroas well as daily tips and meme content for instant service games such as fort night and Battlefield Special Attack 2. While Instagram and YouTube have attempted to replicate its recommendation mechanisms and algorithms, neither has so far been able to replicate the formula with a similar level of success.
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