Facing a ban in the US on January 19, 2925, TikTok is on the ropes following another legal setback.

On Saturday Australian-time the DC Circuit Court of Appeals rejected a temporary pause on the Joe Biden-led ban of TikTok over national security concerns related to Chinese links to TikTok owner ByteDance.

Biden signed a bill into law in April that would force ByteDance to divest TikTok to a non-Chinese company.

The last option now is for TikTok to take the matter to the US Supreme Court and see if it is interested in wading into the dispute. 

TikTok December 10, 2024, statement on Twitter/X.

On December 10, 2024, TikTok filed an emergency motion for an injunction “to stop the TikTok Ban from taking effect on January 19, 2025 until our appeal of the decision by the Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit is heard by the US Supreme Court”.

It claimed in a statement to have 170 million “American users”, which is nearly half of every adult and child in the US.

“Estimates show that small businesses on TikTok would lose more than [US] $1 billion (A$1.6 billion) in revenue and creators would suffer almost [US] $300 million (A$470 million) in lost earnings in just one month unless the TikTok Ban is halted,” the video sharing company said.

“In 2023 alone, the advertising, marketing, and organic reach on TikTok contributed [US] $24.2 billion (A$38 billion), and TikTok’s own operations contributed an additional [US] $8.5 billion (A$13.3 billion) to the U.S. GDP.” 

Following the DC Circuit Court ruling TikTok released another statement: “We plan on taking this case to the Supreme Court, which has an established historical record of protecting Americans’ right to free speech.”