Senators Ask Biden To Extend TikTok Ban Deadline

Two US senators have asked president Joe Biden to extend by 90 days a looming 19 January deadline that could see TikTok banned in the country.

In April the government passed a law forcing TikTok parent company ByteDance, based in Beijing, to divest the firm or have it banned in the US.

Democratic senators Ed Markey and Republican Rand Paul wrote to Biden, citing the law’s “uncertain future” and its “consequences for free expression”.

They said that while the Supreme Court has agreed to hear TikTok’s appeal, time is short.

‘Serious hardship’

“As a practical matter, even if the Court rules that the law is constitutional by the January deadline, ByteDance cannot divest TikTok in that limited time,” the senators wrote.

“Consequently, absent a judicial injunction, decision overturning the law, or action by you, TikTok will soon be banned in the United States, causing its creators and users serious hardship.”

President-elect Donald Trump, who tried unsuccessfully to ban TikTok in 2020 during his first term, has said he would try to prevent the ban.

But other Trump allies support the ban, including Senator Mark Rubio, Trump’s nomination for CIA director John Ratcliffe and FCC chair pick Brendan Carr, who has called TikTok a “foreign influencer campaign”.

TikTok and ByteDance asked the Supreme Court for an emergency injunction suspending the deadline, but the none has been issued.

In its appeal to the top court TikTok said even a one-month ban would lose it substantial revenues, take away one-third of its US user base, undermine its ability to attract advertisers, content creators and staff.

National security

Some 170 million people use the platform in the US, including small businesses whose revenues reportedly outstripped those of Shein and Sephora this year.

The Supreme Court is to hear oral arguments in the case on 10 January after the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in Washington on 6 December rejected a prior appeal.

TikTok and ByteDance argue the law violates Americans’ free speech rights.

In passing the measure lawmakers cited the national security threat they said is posed by TikTok’s access to US user data and its ability to influence the systems that control what users see on the app.

The EU is currently investigating TikTok over an alleged Russian election interference campaign that led to a previously unknown pro-Russian candidate taking the most votes in Romania’s first round of presidential elections in November.