TikTok has been facing down a January divest-or-be-banned deadline. The company filed a lawsuit challenging the law, which was heard before a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C.
The US Justice Department late Friday accused TikTok of harnessing the capability to gather bulk information on users based on views on divisive social issues like gun control, abortion and religion.
The Justice Department is expected to argue that its clamp down on TikTok is about national security, but Constitutional lawyers say there is no way around grappling with the free speech implications.
The House has voted overwhelmingly to ban TikTok if its Chinese owners don't sell it. So now the future of the wildly popular social media platform is in the hands of the Senate.
The White House supports a bipartisan bill that would ban TikTok unless its Chinese parent company sells it. It's a popular app with young voters, who the Biden campaign is working to woo.
British authorities said they are banning the Chinese-owned video-sharing app TikTok from government mobile phones following similar moves by the U.S. and European Union.
A ban on Chinese-owned TikTok for government devices is in a new spending bill. It will not affect most of the 100 million U.S. users of the app, but it is a major anti-TikTok escalation by the U.S.
Trump also said he's been advised "there is no legal path" for the U.S. to keep a cut of whatever TikTok deal the government approves, an idea he had earlier floated.