An attorney holds a TikTok sign outside the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC, U.S., Tuesday, March 12, 2024.
Graeme Sloan | Bloomberg | Getty Images
TikTok he asked on Monday Supreme Court blocking the law that could effectively ban the popular social networking app In the United States by January 19.
On the same day, the candidate for president Donald Trump Shou met with TikTok CEO Zi Chew at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, NBC News confirmed.
TikTok wants the Supreme Court to consider the appeal against it first the lawwhich would require its Chinese owner, ByteDance, to sell the app by that date or force google and the apple To stop supporting TikTok on US platforms
The request came three days after a ruling by the US Court of Appeals in Washington, DC, refused to delay the effect of the law, the Protecting Americans from Applications Controlled by Foreign Adversaries Act.
In that ruling, the appeals court cited national security concerns raised by members of Congress who supported the law.
Trump told reporters on Monday, “We’re going to take a look at TikTok,” when asked about the potential ban.
“You know, I have a soft spot in my heart for TikTok,” Trump said, pointing to its election performance among young voters in November.
Trump tried to ban the app during his first term in the White House, but during the last campaign he said he opposed the law passed by Congress and signed by the president. Joe Biden.
In a petition to the Supreme Court on Monday, TikTok’s lawyers wrote: “Congress has enacted a massive and unprecedented restriction on speech. TikTok is an online platform that is one of the most popular and important communication sites in the Nation.”
The company’s lawyers argued that there is a “substantial public interest” in the Supreme Court reviewing the appeal ruling upholding the law in question.
“The legislation will shut down one of America’s most popular speech platforms the day before a presidential inauguration,” the filing said. “This will silence the speech of the petitioners and the speech of many Americans who use the platform to communicate about politics, commerce, the arts and other matters of public concern.”
In a statement posted on its X social media account, TikTok Policy said, “The Supreme Court has a proven record of upholding Americans’ right to free speech.”
“Today, we ask the Court to do what is customary in free speech cases: apply the strictest scrutiny to speech bans and find that they violate the First Amendment,” the statement said.
He said in the same publication that according to estimates, if TikTok is banned, small businesses using the app will lose more than $1 billion in revenue in a month, and creators will lose almost $300 million in a month.
