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by gregw134 516 days ago
"The law banning TikTok, which was scheduled to go into effect Sunday, allows the president to grant a 90-day extension before the ban is enforced, provided certain criteria are met"

Sounds like they're operating within the law

4 comments

From the ruling:

"The Act permits the President to grant a one-time extension of no more than 90 days with respect to the prohibitions’ 270-day effective date if the President makes certain certifications to Congress regarding progress toward a qualified divestiture."

Sounds like he needs to work with Congress on at least a basic level for this to be within the law, not just make his own decision and declare all is good. And there is the small detail that he is not President, at least not today.

TikTok has already received multiple "interest to acquire" letters, including the one from Perplexity that would keep all existing investors fully intact.

Having that along with a republican majority in both the congress and the senate this isn't going to be difficult for Trump to fulfill the requirements of the law.

That is not enough to satisfy all 3 certification requirements as required by this law.
Do you get the impression that the incoming administration cares about the law?

As long as there is a fig leaf/smokescreen, and TikTok makes the right noises and contributions, they’ll be fine.

If anything, Keeping them technically in violation of the law is the leverage the administration will want to keep so they can squeeze TikTok whenever they want.

The law never required that they shut down, so in a tautological sense they are.

However, with regards to the absurd justification. The president (still Biden) hasn't granted any extensions, nor is the president even able to grant an extension without

> certif[ing] to Congress that-

> "(A) a path to executing a qualified divestiture has been identified with respect to such application;

> "(B) evidence of significant progress toward executing such qualified divestiture has been produced with respect to such application; and

> "(C) there are in place the relevant binding legal agreements to enable execution of such qualified divestiture during the period of such extension.

There is no evidence that Trump will be able to lawfully do any of those, and he has to do all, after he becomes president again.

> "(A) a path to executing a qualified divestiture has been identified with respect to such application;

> There is no evidence that Trump will be able to lawfully do any of those once he becomes president,

He can buy or be gifted a partial ownership stake?

"Qualified divestiture" means "no longer being controlled by a foreign adversary."

Minority or even majority ownership change isn’t enough as long as the CCP still has control.

ByteDance has been rather vocal that they aren't interested in divesting like that. He could be, there is no evidence he will be, and it's not something he can cause to happen.
Isn't selective enforcement in general within any law in the United States? There are plenty of laws that get broken all the time and it's up to police & prosecutors/AGs to decide which cases they actually want to enforce.
He has to kinda gesture towards in-progress plans to comply with the law to grant that exception, but that's not a huge hurdle.