The popular social media platform TikTok will be banned in the United States on January 19th, per the Federal Appeals Court in Washington, D.C. The court issued its ruling on TikTok’s case on December 6th, 2024.

Roughly 170 million Americans use the platform every day and this ruling could take away a place for those Americans to express their free speech, and take away some people’s ways of making money. As page 92 of the document says, “To give effect to those competing interests, Congress chose divestment as a means of paring away the PRC’s control—and thus containing the security threat—while maintaining the app and its algorithm for American users. But if no qualifying divestment occurs—including because of the PRC’s or ByteDance’s unwillingness—many Americans may lose access to an outlet for expression, a source of community, and even a means of income.“ This means that ByteDance (owners of TikTok) will have to sell TikTok to the US to keep the platform open and available to American users. The selling of TikTok to America would prove that TikTok is not under CCP (Chinese Communist Party) influence and would get rid of the national security threat, which is the original reason TikTok was going to get banned.

It is not just Congress who agrees with this ruling, even multiple presidents agree as said on page 91. “..Congress and multiple Presidents determined that divesting it from the PRC’s control is essential to protect our national security.”

“Congress judged it necessary to assume that risk given the grave national-security threats it perceived. And because the record reflects that Congress’s decision was considered, consistent with longstanding regulatory practice, and devoid of an institutional aim to suppress particular messages or ideas, we are not in a position to set it aside.” In short, the ban is going to move forward.