SYRACUSE, N.Y. (NCC NEWS) — A federal court is expected to rule this week whether to uphold the federal ban on TikTok, according to Forbes. This comes amidst a months-long legal battle between the social media company and the U.S. government.
The United States Justice Department is arguing that the conglomerate poses a national security risk due to its connections with China. There is a concern that the Chinese government could obtain delicate viewer information and large amounts of user data.
Meanwhile, Brian Pincus, attorney for TikTok parent company ByteDance, claims that the law would violate the First Amendment. Given that TikTok Inc. is a U.S. entity, lawyers say that a ban could be similar to prohibiting Americans from publishing on foreign-owned media outlets like Politico and Spotify.
“The law before this court is unprecedented and its effect would be staggering,” said Pincus.
A decision is expected to be made as soon as Friday, per Forbes. If the court upholds the ban, there will be some time to quickly appeal to the Supreme Court before it’s slated to be enacted on January 19th. However, the legislation doesn’t require TikTok to immediately shut down its U.S. operations. Instead, the app would be removed from Google and Apple’s app stores, which means that it could not be downloaded.