What’s next for TikTok after US court denies plea to pause ban?

By Auzinea Bacon, CNN

(CNN) — TikTok has plans for another appeal as it faces a ban on January 19.

The DC Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday rejected a temporary pause on the ban of TikTok, calling such a block “unwarranted” and paving the way for the Supreme Court to potentially decide the fate of the popular video-sharing app.

In April, President Joe Biden signed a bill into law that required TikTok, owned by Beijing-based ByteDance, to be sold to a non-Chinese company. The latest ruling follows last week’s decision by the same appeals court to uphold the law, citing national security concerns.

The Biden administration previously urged the appeals court not to issue a temporary block on the law, arguing that doing so might allow the company to wait months to appeal the case to the Supreme Court, effectively halting the law indefinitely.

“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,” TikTok spokesperson Michael Hughes said on December 6.

What will TikTok’s next appeal look like?

The Supreme Court could make a quick decision on the case. Both TikTok and the federal government previously asked the appeals court to expedite its ruling so the case could be appealed before the January 19 ban.

But the Supreme Court, which has a six-justice conservative majority, seems likely to rule in favor of upholding the ban, Josh Schiller, partner at law firm Boies Schiller Flexner, told CNN earlier this month.

“I have trouble thinking that the conservative force on the Supreme Court would not see this as a (national) security case,” Schiller said.

Gautam Hans, associate director of the First Amendment Clinic and professor at Cornell Law School, told CNN earlier this month that the Supreme Court may decide not to review the case at all, in which case TikTok is out of luck.

Do you need to delete the app?

Not necessarily.

The Department of Justice said Wednesday that, if the ban takes effect, it would “not directly prohibit the continued use of TikTok” for the app’s more than 170 million monthly users. But don’t expect any more updates from the app or the ability to download it, if the ban takes place.

Two leaders of the US House of Representatives’ committee on China sent a bipartisan letter to the CEOs of Apple and Google parent company Alphabet that said they should prepare to remove TikTok from their US app stores on January 19.

TikTok will also be unavailable on internet hosting platforms. The Justice Department warned users can expect the app to “eventually” be unworkable.

Can the ban be avoided?

There’s still some hope that TikTok could remain active in the United States, though ByteDance has previously indicated it will not sell it.

The ban’s legislation leaves room for Biden to grant a one-time, 90-day extension if he determines a company has made progress toward a sale. He hasn’t suggested any plans to do so.

President-elect Donald Trump, who begins his term a day after the ban, could be on TikTok’s side. He said in July (in a video posted to the app) that he would “never ban TikTok” — although he did try to ban it during his first term.

There are a few options: Trump could ask Congress to repeal the law, though experts say that’s unlikely to be successful. He could also direct the attorney general not to enforce the law or announce that TikTok is no longer subject to the law, University of Minnesota associate law professor Alan Rozenshtein told CNN last month.

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CNN’s Clare Duffy, Brian Fung and Devan Cole contributed to this report.