This legal battle stems from a law passed by Congress in April requiring TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, to divest from its US operations or face removal from app stores on January 19.
Congress has labelled TikTok a national security threat due to ByteDance’s ties to China, which the US government considers a foreign adversary. Officials fear the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) could use TikTok for propaganda or access US user data. TikTok has denied these allegations, asserting that it does not share data with the Chinese government and that a US-based team independently moderates content.