“What the Act targets is the PRC’s ability to manipulate that content covertly,” the judgment stated. “Understood in that way, the Government’s justification is wholly consonant with the First Amendment.”

TikTok most likely to interest Supreme Court

TikTok is unsurprisingly annoyed by the judgment. In a declaration supplied to Ars, TikTok representative Michael Hughes verified that TikTok meant to appeal the case to the Supreme Court.

“The Supreme Court has an established historical record of protecting Americans’ right to free speech, and we expect they will do just that on this important constitutional issue,” Hughes stated.

Throughout the lawsuits, ByteDance had actually highlighted that divesting TikTok in the time that the law needed was not possible. The court disagreed that ByteDance being not able to spin off TikTok by January turned the United States law into a de facto TikTok restriction. Rather, the court recommended that TikTok might briefly end up being not available up until it’s sold, just dealing with a restriction if ByteDance dragged its feet or withstood divestiture.

There’s no indicator yet that ByteDance would ever want to part with its most popular item. And if there’s no sale and SCOTUS decreases the case, that would likely imply that TikTok would not be offered in the United States, as supplying access to TikTok would run the risk of heavy fines. Hughes cautioned that countless TikTokers will be silenced next year if the appeals court judgment stands.

“Unfortunately, the TikTok ban was conceived and pushed through based upon inaccurate, flawed and hypothetical information, resulting in outright censorship of the American people,” Hughes stated. “The TikTok ban, unless stopped, will silence the voices of over 170 million Americans here in the US and around the world on January 19th, 2025.”