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By David Shepardson
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Justice Department on Wednesday asked a U.S. appeals court to reject TikTok’s emergency request for a temporary restraining order that would have required its Chinese subsidiary ByteDance to remove the short-form video app by Jan. 19 or face sanctions.
TikTok and ByteDance on Monday filed an emergency motion in the US Supreme Court for the District of Columbia pending a US Supreme Court review. They warned that without a court order the law would “shut down TikTok – one of the most popular platforms in the country – for more than 170 million monthly users.”
The Department of Justice said that the court should not delay the date for the law to take effect, saying that “China’s continued use of TikTok poses a threat to national security.”
TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The DOJ said on Wednesday that if the ban goes into effect on January 19 “it will not directly prevent the use of TikTok” by users who have downloaded TikTok but acknowledged that the effect of the ban on the service “ultimately will be to render the app ineffective.”
On Friday, three judges of the appeals court agreed with the order that ByteDance remove TikTok from the United States as soon as possible to prevent the ban in just six weeks.
Companies identified as President-elect Donald Trump have vowed to cancel the ban, arguing that the delay “gives the incoming administration time to determine their status.”
The decision – unless the Supreme Court reverses it – puts the fate of TikTok in the hands of President Joe Biden if he extends the 90-day deadline of January 19 to force the sale and then Trump, who takes office on Jan. 20.
Trump, who failed to ban TikTok in his first term in 2020, said before the presidential election in November that he would not allow TikTok to be banned.
The decision is in line with a law that gives the United States government the power to block certain foreign programs that raise concerns about the collection of Americans’ personal data. In 2020, Trump also tried to ban Tencent-owned WeChat, but was blocked by the courts.
