Federal court upholds TikTok ban despite opposition

WASHINGTON — A US federal appeals court on Friday upheld a law mandating that ByteDance sell the widely used social media app TikTok or face a potential ban in the United States, despite widespread opposition.

A three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals in Washington, DC, dismissed TikTok's claim that the ban is unconstitutional and infringes on the First Amendment rights of the 170 million people in the United States who use the app.

If ByteDance does not sell TikTok by Jan 19, the law will require Apple and Google to remove TikTok from their app stores, leading to a ban of the app.