WASHINGTON — The US Supreme Court decided on Wednesday (Dec 18) to hear a bid by TikTok and its China-based parent company, ByteDance, to block a law intended to force the sale of the short-video app by Jan 19 or face a ban on national security grounds.

The justices did not immediately act on an emergency request by TikTok and ByteDance, as well as by some of its users who post content on the social media platform, for an injunction to halt the looming ban, opting instead to hear arguments on the matter on Jan 10.

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 President Joe 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. TikTok has said it poses no imminent threat to US security.

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