The future of TikTok in the U.S. hangs in the balance as justices hear at the Supreme Court on Friday. the last challenge A law that would ban the video-sharing app within nine days unless its China-based parent company sells its stake.
High-profile cases — TikTok v. Garland — one of the world’s most popular social media platforms is pitting three branches of the US government against the idea that the app poses a serious threat to national security.
Congress passed the law last April with strong bipartisan majorities to target platforms owned by foreign adversaries that collect vast amounts of data on individual Americans and spread propaganda or disinformation. President Joe Biden signed it; lower federal courts have affirmed.
ByteDance, which owns TikTok and is based in China, denies any nefarious activity in the US and has argued that the law violates the free speech rights of the 170 million Americans who use the app every month. He has refused to sell before.
US Supreme Court in Washington, DC on December 4, 2024.
Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images, FILE
An ABC News/Ipsos poll last spring 34% of adults said they used the app, which is in line with the Pew Research Center estimate. Pew reports that 63% of 13- to 17-year-olds use the platform. Together, they have around 103 million users.
The survey found that 12% of adults use TikTok “often”, 10% use it “occasionally” and 12% use the app “rarely”.
Lower courts have rejected the company’s First Amendment challenges, saying the government’s justifications are credible given evidence of China’s extensive cyber-espionage efforts and covert manipulation of content.
“If TikTok Fails to Execute a Qualified Divestment,” Justice Douglas Ginsburg he wrote For the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, “TikTok’s millions of users will have to find an alternative means of communication. That burden can be attributed to the (People’s Republic of China’s) hybrid commercial threat to US national security, not the US Government.”
The Supreme Court is hearing the case on an unusually fast track, just days before TikTok’s ban takes effect on January 19. A ruling is likely this month, but not guaranteed.
Noel Francisco, TikTok’s lawyer, began his argument on Friday that the law passed by Congress is a “burden on TikTok’s speech” and “at the very least” the court should temporarily suspend the ban from taking effect.
China has raised questions from the courts about its ties to TikTok’s parent company ByteDance.
“Are we to believe that the last parent is, in fact, dependent on doing intelligence work for the Chinese government?” asked Chief Justice John Roberts.
If the ban is passed, it would be illegal for app stores run by US companies like Apple and Google to offer TikTok downloads or updates with new features or technical fixes. Using TikTok would not become a crime, and users who have downloaded the app can continue using it for now, technology experts said.
More than a dozen countries, including India, Canada, Australia and Taiwan, have already blocked or restricted TikTok. In 2023, the US government banned the use of TikTok on any federal device.
If the ban is lifted, the court would express serious concerns about freedom of expression.
The Supreme Court’s conservative majority has historically been very deferential to the government’s stance on national security matters, but the justices may also be wary of a precedent-setting decision that could silence a popular communication tool.
In the case it can be a wild card the position of the president Donald Trumpwho once unequivocally supported banning TikTok in the US, but now calls it “a unique medium for free speech.”
Trump asked the court in a motion late last month to suspend the divestment deadline to allow him to reach a “negotiated resolution” to save the application on Jan. 20.
President-elect Donald Trump looks on during the Turning Point USA AmericaFest at the Phoenix Convention Center on December 22, 2024 in Phoenix.
Rebecca Noble/Getty Images, FILE
In an amicus brief, John Sauer, Trump’s nominee for attorney general, calls Trump “unusual as a person with excellent deal-making skills, the political will to negotiate a resolution to save the electoral mandate and platform” while addressing national security concerns. The government has declared.
Trump is not taking a position on the law’s constitutionality and, legal experts said, does not provide a legal basis for blocking or delaying otherwise lawful legislation unless judges find it unconstitutional.
The two sides have already been trying for years to reach an agreement to put in place new privacy protections and independent oversight mechanisms that would assuage US officials’ concerns. TikTok proposed creating a data security subsidiary, based in the US, and imposing strict limits on how Chinese authorities could access user data.
Ultimately, top US national security agencies deemed the proposals insufficient.
