On Monday (Dec. 9), TikTok filed an emergency injunction with the federal appeals court to temporarily halt a law mandating ByteDance sell the app by Jan. 19, 2025, or potentially face a ban in the United States.

The platform claims it would be “irreparably injured,” while small creators and businesses would lose over $1 billion in revenue and earnings within just one month. “In 2023 alone, the advertising, marketing and organic reach on TikTok contributed $24.2 billion, and TikTok’s own operations contributed an additional $8.5 billion to the U.S. GDP,” the company wrote on social media.

“If the platform becomes unavailable in the United States, many current and would-be users and creators in the United States and abroad will migrate to competing platforms,”the court filing stated, likely referencing Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. TikTok projected losing about one-third of its U.S. daily users within a month and flagged retaining talent, particularly software engineers, as a major challenge if the ban goes into effect.

Elsewhere, ByteDance argued that the ban would violate First Amendment rights. “As one of the most popular speech platforms in America, TikTok is used by regular citizens, businesses and politicians alike — including, in the most recent presidential election, by both major-party candidates [Kamala Harris and Donald Trump] to communicate with American voters.”

Lawyers for the companies are urging the appeals court to come to a decision by Dec. 16 to "ensure time to seek emergency relief from the Supreme Court if necessary." The U.S. government is expected to respond by Wednesday (Dec. 11), with TikTok and ByteDance submitting their reply by Thursday (Dec. 12).

TikTok’s filing followed the U.S. Court of Appeals decision to uphold a law mandating the app be sold to a non-Chinese company or begin taking steps to divest its ownership. “Unfortunately, the TikTok ban was conceived and pushed through based upon inaccurate, flawed and hypothetical information,” the company responded, per REVOLT.