TikTok to be banned from Sunday in US as Supreme Court rejects appeal
The Supreme Court have made a decision on the appeal of America's TikTok ban.
It's not looking good for TikTok, as the U.S. Supreme Court has rejected a bid to stop it from being sold. There have been fears about how the Chinese-owned ByteDance could be accessing our data, with TikTok being banned on government devices since the end of 2019.
President-elect Donald Trump once fought for TikTok to be banned in the USA, but these days, he's become something of a white knight who's rallying behind the short-form video platform. Ahead of his return to being President of the United States, he's even asked for an extension of up to 90 days to save it.
Advert
170 million Americans use TikTok every month, but as they flock to RedNote as an alternative, the ban hammer looks set to come down on January 19.
The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld the "Protecting Americans' Sensitive Data from Foreign Adversaries" act that was put in place by the Biden administration.
ByteDance claimed that the law violates the free speech of the millions of Americans that use the app on a daily basis, but the Supreme Court wasn't swayed by the argument.
Instead, the highest court in the land maintained the worries of U.S. officials that potential links to the Chinese government are a national security concern.
These concerns have only been amplified by reports that TikTok CEO Shou Chew will be attending Trump's inauguration on January 20.
With a TikTok ban looming, American could face serious ramifications of trying to access TikTok by a VPN, and while there's still a chance someone like Elon Musk or MrBeast could swoop in to buy its U.S. operations from ByteDance, the clock is ticking.