(WASHINGTON) — TikTok on Monday requested the emergency pause of a law set to ban the popular social media app next month.
A temporary lifting of the measure would afford the Supreme Court time to determine whether it should review the law, the company said in a court filing.
The filling arrives days after TikTok — which boasts more than 170 million U.S. users — lost a challenge against the measure in a federal appeals court.
A pause of the law would afford the Supreme Court time to determine whether it should “review this exceptionally important case,” TikTok said in the court filing on Monday.
The law would impose a nationwide ban of TikTok on Jan. 19, 2025, unless the company finds a different owner.
The ban would take effect one day before the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump, who has signaled that he would seek to reverse a possible ban.
The legal pause would also allow the Trump administration an opportunity to decide its approach to TikTok, the company’s legal filing said.
TikTok had challenged the law on First Amendment grounds, arguing that a potential ban would deny American users access to a popular venue for public expression. Attorneys for the company also disputed claims that the app poses a national security risk.
In a ruling on Friday, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit rejected TikTok’s bid to overturn the law.
The federal court found merit in security concerns about potential data collection or content manipulation undertaken by the Chinese government.
Each of those two concerns “constitutes an independently compelling national security interest,” the court opinion said. The court cited previous instances in which the Chinese government had pursued data, noting the government’s use of relationships with Chinese-owned businesses.
The China-based app has faced growing scrutiny from government officials over fears that user data could fall into the possession of the Chinese government and the app could be weaponized by China to spread misinformation. TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, has denied those claims.
There is little evidence that TikTok has shared U.S. user data with the Chinese government or that the Chinese government has asked the app to do so, cybersecurity experts previously told ABC News.
In a statement on Monday, TikTok urged the Supreme Court to intervene on its behalf.
“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,” the company said. “Unfortunately, the TikTok ban was conceived and pushed through based upon inaccurate, flawed and hypothetical information, resulting in outright censorship of the American people.”
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