The US Supreme Court on Friday ruled against TikTok in its challenge to a federal law that would have required the popular short video app to be sold by its Chinese parent company ByteDance or banned in the United States on January 19.
The justices ruled that the law, passed by an overwhelming bipartisan majority in Congress last year and signed by Democratic President Joe Biden, did not violate the First Amendment protection of the United States Constitution against government restriction of freedom of expression. expression.
The judges overturned a lower court’s decision that upheld the move after it was challenged by TikTok, ByteDance and some of the app’s users.
The Supreme Court acted quickly in the case, having filed its arguments on January 10, just nine days before the deadline set by law. The case pitted the right to free speech against national security concerns in the age of social media.
TikTok is one of the most prominent social media platforms in the United States, used by about 270 million Americans, about half of the country’s population, including many young people. TikTok’s powerful algorithm, its main asset, provides individual users with short videos tailored to their tastes.
The platform features a vast collection of user-submitted videos, often less than a minute in length, that can be viewed with a smartphone app or on the Internet.
China and the United States are economic and geopolitical rivals, and Chinese ownership of TikTok for years has raised concern among American leaders.
The fight over TikTok unfolded during the final days of Biden’s presidency (Republican Donald Trump will succeed him on Monday) and at a time of rising trade tensions between the world’s two largest economies.
The Biden administration has said the law targets control of the app by a foreign adversary, not protected speech, and that TikTok could continue to operate as is if it is freed from China’s control.
During arguments in the case, Justice Department attorney Elizabeth Prelogar said the Chinese government’s control of TikTok poses a “serious threat” to U.S. national security as China seeks to amass large amounts of data. confidential information about Americans and engage in covert influence operations.
Prelogar said China forces companies like ByteDance to secretly hand over data on social media users and comply with Chinese government directives.
TikTok’s immense data set, Prelogar added, represents a powerful tool that could be used by the Chinese government for harassment, recruitment and espionage, and that China “could weaponize TikTok at any time to harm the United States.” .
The law was passed last April and the Biden administration defended it in court. TikTok and ByteDance, as well as some users who publish content on the application, challenged the measure and appealed to the Supreme Court after losing on December 6 in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
Trump’s opposition to the ban represents a change in position from his first term when he sought to ban TikTok. Trump has said he has “a warm place in my heart for TikTok” and said the app helped him with young voters in the 2024 election.
In December, Trump asked the Supreme Court to suspend the law to give his incoming administration “the opportunity to seek a political resolution of the issues at issue in the case.” But although Trump has promised to “save” TikTok, many of his Republican allies supported the ban.
Mike Waltz, Trump’s next national security adviser, said a day ago that the new administration will keep TikTok alive in the United States if there is a workable deal.
Waltz said the incoming administration would “implement measures to prevent TikTok from disappearing” and cited a provision in the law that allows a 90-day extension if there is “significant progress” toward a divestment.
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said a day ago that TikTok should be given more time to find an American buyer and that he would work with the Trump administration “to keep TikTok alive while protecting our national security.”
TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew will attend Trump’s inauguration on Monday, sitting among other high-profile guests.
TikTok has said the law endangers the First Amendment rights not only of itself and its users, but of all Americans. TikTok has said the ban would impact its user base, advertisers, content creators and employee talent. TikTok has 7,000 employees in the US.
Noel Francisco, a lawyer for TikTok and ByteDance, told the Supreme Court that the app is “one of the most popular expression platforms in the United States” and said the law would require it to “go dark” unless ByteDance executes a qualified divestiture. .
TikTok plans to shut down the app’s U.S. operations on Sunday, barring a last-minute reprieve, people familiar with the matter said. Reuters On Wednesday.
Francis said the US government’s real goal with this law is expression, specifically the fear that Americans could be “persuaded by Chinese disinformation.” But the First Amendment leaves that in the hands of the American people, not the government, Francisco said.
The law prohibits providing certain services to TikTok and other apps controlled by foreign adversaries, including by offering them through app stores like Apple and Alphabet’s Google, effectively preventing their continued use in the U.S. without divestiture.
