Last April, Congress pass the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversaries Controlled Applications Act. This law contradicts what many lawmakers expected it to do; to bring about the ban of widely used social media networking site TikTok along other newer platforms specializing in photo slideshows like “Lemon8.”
The latter, on the topmost charts of the most visited free apps, has left others such as ChatGPT behind. This legislation mandates a deadline of January 19 by which ByteDance, the Chinese owner of TikTok, must divest itself of the application. If ByteDance fails to sell it by then, TikTok will likely be banned.
To this law, TikTok countered with a lawsuit in May for infringing on First Amendment rights that guarantee free speech. As a result, the law has been upheld by the DC Circuit Court and continued in effect on December 6.
TikTok submitted an appeal to the Supreme Court on December 18 following this ruling. In a very interesting act, Donald Trump on December 27 filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court, demanding to delay the enforcement of the law for then.
Indeed, the act mentions TikTok and ByteDance but apparently puts a restriction on Lemon8 too. The law is thus vague and open, extending to any company owned by a foreign adversary allowing users to create, share and view content. The emergence of Lemon8 may indicate that ByteDance has new opportunities to enlarge its footprint while facing a TikTok ban.