Appeals court upholds TikTok ban, declining to block law that would force sale

Washington — A federal appeals court upheld a law that will ban TikTok in the U.S. in the coming months if its Chinese parent company doesn't sell its stake in the app, dealing another setback to the widely popular video-sharing service in its battle with the federal government.

A panel of three judges from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit unanimously sided with the Justice Department in declining to review the petition for relief from TikTok and ByteDance, its Chinese parent company, saying the law is constitutional.

"We conclude the portions of the Act the petitioners have standing to challenge, that is the provisions concerning TikTok and its related entities, survive constitutional scrutiny," Senior Judge Douglas Ginsburg wrote in the majority opinion. "We therefore deny the petitions."