TikTok one step closer to US ban after court upholds law, deadline set for mid-January

TikTok is one step closer to disappearing in the US after a panel of federal judges on Friday upheld a new law that could lead to the banning of the popular Chinese-owned video app by mid-January.

The three judges, in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, denied TikTok’s petition to overturn the law. The decision could be a death blow for the app in one of its biggest markets. More than 170 million Americans use TikTok to entertain and inform themselves, turning it into a cultural phenomenon. The looming loss of the app in the US had spurred concern from free speech advocates.