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Gbeminiyi Ogunleye
3 months ago
Overview
Sell Off Or Shut Down By January 19: US Supreme Court Rules Against Tiktok App
Washington — President-elect Donald Trump vowed Sunday to issue an executive order to restore TikTok after app owner ByteDance voluntarily shut down service in the U.S. just hours before a Sunday deadline, cutting off access to tens of millions of users after the Supreme Court this week upheld a law that effectively banned it over concerns about its ties to China.
The law passed by Congress last year gave TikTok's Chinese parent company ByteDance until Jan. 19 to divest from TikTok or be cut off from U.S. app stores and hosting services. TikTok said a sale wasn't possible and challenged the law in court, but it was rejected by a unanimous Supreme Court on Friday.
Trump on Sunday posted on social media that he would restore TikTok, first writing "SAVE TIKTOK" and then vowing to issue an executive order on Monday to extend the period of time before the law takes effect. Further, he said there would be no liability for companies that helped keep TikTok from going dark before the order went into effect.
"Americans deserve to see our exciting Inauguration on Monday, as well as other events and conversations," he wrote. "I would like the United States to have a 50% ownership position in a joint venture. By doing this, we save TikTok, keep it in good hands and allow it to say up. Without U.S. approval, there is no Tik Tok. With our approval, it is worth hundreds of billions of dollars - maybe trillions."
The court's decision said the divest-or-ban law does not violate the free speech rights of TikTok or its 170 million users in the U.S., agreeing with the government's position that the platform could be used by China to collect a vast amount of sensitive information on Americans.
