TikTok ban: US senators urge Biden to extend ByteDance deadline by 90 days

Democratic Senator Ed Markey and Republican Senator Rand Paul on Thursday urged President Joe Biden to extend by 90 days a January 19 deadline for China-based ByteDance to sell the US assets of its short-video app TikTok or face a ban.

The Supreme Court said on Wednesday it will consider the legal challenge of TikTok and ByteDance, seeking an injunction to halt the looming ban or sale and will hold arguments on the matter on January 10.

“Given the law’s uncertain future and its consequences for free expression, we urge you to trigger the 90-day extension before January 19,” the senators wrote Biden.

The White House and TikTok did not immediately comment.

The challengers are appealing a lower court’s ruling that upheld the law. TikTok is used by about 170 million Americans.

Congress passed the measure in April and Biden, a Democrat, signed it into law. The Justice Department had said that as a Chinese company, TikTok poses “a national-security threat of immense depth and scale” because of its access to vast amounts of data on American users, from locations to private messages, and its ability to secretly manipulate content that Americans view on the app.