A federal appeals court on Friday unanimously upheld a law that could lead to a ban on TikTok within months, dealing a resounding defeat to the popular social media platform as it fights for its survival in the states -United.

The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rejected TikTok’s motion to overturn the law – which requires TikTok to sever ties with its China-based parent company, ByteDance, or face being banned by mid-January – and rejected the company’s challenge to the law. which he claimed was contrary to the First Amendment.

“The First Amendment exists to protect free speech in the United States,” said the court opinion, written by Justice Douglas Ginsburg. “Here, the government acted solely to protect that freedom against a foreign adversary nation and to limit that adversary’s ability to collect data about people in the United States.”

TikTok and ByteDance – another plaintiff in the lawsuit – are expected to appeal to the Supreme Court, although it is unclear whether the court will take up the case.

“The Supreme Court has an established history of protecting Americans’ right to free speech, and we hope it will do just that on this important constitutional question,” said TikTok spokesperson Michael Hughes , in a press release.

“Unfortunately, the TikTok ban was crafted and imposed based on inaccurate, false and hypothetical information, resulting in outright censorship of the American people,” Hughes said. Unless stopped, he said the law “will silence the voices of more than 170 million Americans here in the United States and around the world on January 19, 2025.”

While the case will go directly to court, it’s also possible that both companies could be thrown a lifeline of sorts by President-elect Donald Trump, who tried to ban TikTok during his first term but declared during the presidential campaign that he now was. against such action.

The law, signed by President Joe Biden in April, was the culmination of a years-long saga in Washington via the short-form video sharing application, which the government considered a threat to national security because of its links with China.

The United States has expressed concern that TikTok collects vast amounts of user data, including sensitive information about viewing habitswhich could fall into the hands of the Chinese government through coercion. Officials also warned that the proprietary algorithm that powers what users see on the app is vulnerable to manipulation by Chinese authorities, who can use it to shape content on the platform in ways that are difficult to detect. – a concern. reflected by the European Union Friday as it examines the video-sharing app’s role in Romania’s elections.

TikTok, which sued the government over the law in May, has long denied that it could be used by Beijing to spy on or manipulate Americans. Its lawyers pointedly pointed out that the United States has not provided evidence that the company passed user data to the Chinese government or manipulated content to benefit Beijing in the United States. They also argued that the law relied on future risks, which the Justice Department emphasized in part by pointing to unspecified actions the two companies allegedly took in the past due to requests from the Chinese government.

Friday’s ruling came after the appeals court panel, made up of two Republican-appointed judges and one Democrat, heard the pleadings in September.

During the hearing, which lasted more than two hours, the panel appeared to question how foreign ownership of TikTok affects its rights under the Constitution and how far the government could go to limit the influence potential from abroad on a foreign platform. On Friday, all three rejected TikTok’s petition.

In the court’s ruling, Ginsburg, a Republican appointee, rejected TikTok’s main legal arguments against the law, including that the law was an illegal law or an expropriation of property in violation of the Fifth Amendment. He also said the law did not violate the First Amendment because the government was not seeking to “remove content or require a certain mix of content” on TikTok.

“The content of the platform could in principle remain unchanged after the divestment, and United States citizens would remain free to read and share as much PRC propaganda (or other content) as they wish on TikTok or any other platform of their choice. “” Ginsburg wrote, using the abbreviation “People’s Republic of China.”

Justice Sri Srinivasan, the court’s chief justice, issued a concurring opinion.

TikTok’s lawsuit was consolidated by a second legal challenge brought by several content creators — for which the company is paying legal costs — as well as a third suit filed on behalf of conservative creators who work with a nonprofit organization nonprofit called BASED Politics Inc. Other organizations, including the Knight First Amendment Institute, had also filed amicus briefs supporting TikTok.

“This is a deeply flawed decision that reads too narrowly important First Amendment precedents and gives the government broad authority to restrict Americans’ access to information, ideas and media in the United States. foreigner,” said Jameel Jaffer, executive director of the organization. “We hope that the appeal court’s decision will not be the final word.”

Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, lawmakers who had pushed for the legislation celebrated the court’s decision.

“I am optimistic that President Trump will make it easier for Americans to take over TikTok to enable its continued use in the United States and look forward to welcoming the app to America under new ownership,” said Republican Rep. John Moolenaar of Michigan, president of the association. House Select Committee on China.

Democratic Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, a co-author of the law, said “it is time for ByteDance to accept” the law.

To ease concerns about the company’s owners, TikTok says it has invested more than $2 billion to strengthen data protection for U.S. users.

The company also argued that the government’s broader concerns could have been addressed in a shorter time frame. draft agreement he provided the Biden administration more than two years ago during talks between the two parties. He criticized the government for withdrawing from further negotiations on the deal, which the Justice Department says is insufficient.

Lawyers for both companies said it was commercially and technologically impossible to divest the platform. They also say that any sale of TikTok without the coveted algorithm – the platform’s secret sauce that Chinese authorities would likely block as part of any divestiture plan – would turn the US version of TikTok into an island disconnected from other global content .

However, some investors, including Former Trump Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and billionaire Frank McCourt, have expressed interest in purchasing the platform. The two men said earlier this year that they were launching a consortium to buy TikTok’s U.S. operations.

This week, a spokesperson for McCourt’s Project Liberty initiative, which aims to protect online privacy, said anonymous participants in their offering had made informal commitments of more than $20 billion in capital.