Washington (December 19, 2024) - Senator Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), a member of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, and Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.), today sent a letter to President Joe Biden urging him to provide TikTok owner ByteDance with a 90-day extension to either sell TikTok or face a ban in the United States, as authorized by the Protecting Americans Data from Foreign Adversaries Act. The lawmakers urged the Biden administration to trigger the 90-day extension before January 19, the deadline by which ByteDance must either divest TikTok or face a ban. On January 10, the U.S. Supreme Court has scheduled oral arguments to consider whether the law violates the First Amendment.
Earlier this month, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the legislation that bans TikTok.
In the letter, the senators wrote, “The stakes here are high: As a practical matter, even if the Court rules that the law is constitutional by the January deadline, ByteDance cannot divest TikTok in that limited time. Consequently, absent a judicial injunction, decision overturning the law, or action by you, TikTok will soon be banned in the United States, causing its creators and users serious hardship.”
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