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An advocate holds a sign for TikTok following a news conference outside the US Capitol in Washington, DC, US, on Tuesday, March 12, 2024.
Graeme Sloan | Bloomberg | Getty Images
TikTok asked the Supreme Court on Monday to temporarily block a potential ban on the popular social media app pending an appeal of a lower-court ruling.
The request came days after a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., refused to issue such an injunction in favor of the app, which is used by 170 million Americans.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals in D.C. on Dec. 6 upheld a federal law that will require China-based ByteDance to sell TikTok by Jan. 19 or face an effective ban in the United States.
The appeals court cited national concerns raised by members of Congress who backed the law.
In a statement Monday posted on its X social media account, TikTok Policy said, “The Supreme Court has an established record of upholding Americans’ right to free speech.”
“Today, we are asking the Court to do what it has traditionally done in free speech cases: apply the most rigorous scrutiny to speech bans and conclude that it violates the First Amendment,” the statement said.
The same post said that estimates show that if TikTok is banned, small business who use the app will lost more than $1 billion in revenue in just one month, and that creators who use the app will lose nearly $300 million in earnings in one month.
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