Tiktok request to temporarily halt US ban rejected

The companies warned that without court action the law will "shut down TikTok - one of the nation's most popular speech platforms - for its more than 170 million domestic monthly users".

"The petitioners have not identified any case in which a court, after rejecting a constitutional challenge to an Act of Congress, has enjoined the Act from going into effect while review is sought in the Supreme Court," the DC Circuit said.

A TikTok spokesperson said after the ruling the company plans to take its case to the Supreme Court, "which has an established historical record of protecting Americans' right to free speech."

Under the law, TikTok will be banned unless ByteDance divests it by January 19. The law also gives the US government sweeping powers to ban other foreign-owned apps that could raise concerns about collection of Americans' data.

The US Justice Department argues "continued Chinese control of the TikTok application poses a continuing threat to national security."

TikTok says the Justice Department has misstated the social media app's ties to China, arguing its content recommendation engine and user data are stored in the US on cloud servers operated by Oracle while content moderation decisions that affect US users are made in the United States.