by Matt Agorist, The Free Thought Project:
The Justice Department of the United States is ramming through its attempt to silence the voices of millions of Americans in an effort to control the spread of information on the social media app.
(Reclaim The Net) The winds of Washington are blowing icy cold for TikTok this December. A federal appeals court panel handed down a ruling today that could send the app packing— or at least force it into a kind of corporate divorce.
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The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has today declared the law threatening TikTok’s existence to be totally constitutional, leaving the platform to fight for its digital life. In short, TikTok has until mid-January to break ties with its Beijing-based parent, ByteDance, or risk an outright ban in the United States.
TikTok responded with the following statement:
“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. Unfortunately, the TikTok ban was conceived and pushed through based upon inaccurate, flawed and hypothetical information, resulting in outright censorship of the American people. 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.”
The Free Speech Shuffle
TikTok played the First Amendment card, arguing that banning the platform would stomp on Americans’ free speech rights. But the court wasn’t having it, throwing in a little verbal aikido about protecting actual freedom.
“The First Amendment exists to protect free speech in the United States,” the court wrote, presumably while straightening its tie in a metaphorical mirror. “Here the Government acted solely to protect that freedom from a foreign adversary nation and to limit that adversary’s ability to gather data on people in the United States.”
Translation: TikTok, it’s not you — it’s China.
TikTok has been accused of being influenced by the Chinese Communist Party.
ByteDance’s Legal Tango
TikTok and its parent company, ByteDance, is already planning to appeal to the Supreme Court because apparently, they’re gluttons for punishment. And hey, why not? When you’re staring down a deadline that could nuke your entire US business, you either fight or fold.
But here’s where it gets interesting: the same President-elect Donald Trump who once tried to fire TikTok like it was a contestant on The Apprentice now says he’s against a ban. Trump has promised to swoop in and “save” the platform during his second term.
The law itself was signed by President Joe Biden in April, marking a rare bipartisan moment in a town otherwise allergic to cooperation. For years, Washington has been gnashing its teeth over TikTok’s ties to the Chinese government, accusing the app of being a national security threat disguised as a dance challenge factory.
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