The Supreme Court has been asked by Trump to delay the start of the ban
US President Donald Trump asked the Supreme Court to stay a bill that would have barred him from selling his TikTok app, claiming he “seeks the ability to resolve the issues at hand through political means” once he takes office. Trump added he possesses “the consummate deal-making expertise, the electoral mandate, and the political will to negotiate a resolution to save the platform”.
We checked back in with the billionaire who wants to save it
TikTok Co-founder Frank McCourt in an interview with The Verge said that Project Liberty’s goal is bigger than buying TikTok and moving 170 million people on the internet. “It’s trying to find a better way to use the internet. Purchasing TikTok and moving 170 million people on the internet would make that alternative a reality,” he added.
We check in with the billionaire who wants to save it
Former Los Angeles Dodgers owner Frank McCourt has announced that he has received $20 billion in “informal” pledges from investors to purchase the TikTok app as part of a people’s bid. McCourt further said he wants to scale TikTok’s vision of interoperable, more privacy-friendly internet. “I don’t want or need the program that runs on TikTok’s For You page,” he added.
Pro-Harris TikTok was safe until election day
TikTok influencer Kamala Harris has said she felt safe in an algorithmic bubble until US president-elect Donald Trump was elected. “I also don’t see a world where a black woman is elected for President right now. I know what people are watching on the internet, but I also don’t see a world where a black woman is elected,” she added.
Here are the documents that the app tried to keep secret
TikTok knew that many of its features were designed to “interfer with essential personal responsibilities like sufficient sleep, work/school responsibilities and connecting with loved ones”, according to documents released by US authorities. TikTok is aware that some young users have accounts, but does little to remove them because of complaints from parents and teachers, the documents added.
Today, Tik Tok argued in court against the US ban
The US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit on Tuesday heard the TikTok appeal against the ban by the US President Donald Trump. TikTok’s lawyer Jeffrey Fisher argued that the ban is a violation of users’ First Amendment rights. However, the judges said that it’s not a foreign country and they will show deference to Congress that it has established a legitimate national security threat.
The US Justice Department is suspected of violating the privacy of children
The US has sued TikTok over “age-gating” practices that let its users restart accounts even if they had first entered a birthday showing they were 13 years old. The lawsuit said that TikTok’s age-gating technique “is deficient in multiple ways”. TikTok now allows users to log in through Facebook which makes their accounts “age unknown”, it added.
The legal experts say a ban without specific evidence is unconstitutional
TikTok has filed a lawsuit against the US, alleging that the country doesn’t have the right data security standards under the forced divestment law. TikTok added that its proposal included giving the US a “shut-down option” it could use if TikTok didn’t meet its data security standards. It further claimed that it never received any requests from China for Americans’ data.
TikTok calls the U.S. ban unconstitutional
Video-streaming app TikTok has said that an algorithm used by China’s ByteDance, which allows it to function in the US, cannot be easily transferred to the country even if it does allow it. ByteDance had earlier said that it did not intend to let go of ByteDance’s service in the US. The algorithm involves millions of lines of software code.
The US ban was called unconstitutional by TikTok
Chinese social media platform TikTok has challenged a US law that would ban ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company. ByteDance, not TikTok, controls the algorithm that determines what millions see on the app every day, TikTok’s challenge states. “Banning TikTok is so unconstitutional that the Act’s sponsors have tried to depict the law not as a ban at all but as a regulation of TikTok’s ownership,” it added.