The Supreme Court’s justices indicated Friday that they might uphold the federal law that bans TikTok unless it separates from ByteDance. During oral arguments, they expressed skepticism about TikTok’s opposition to the law, raising the possibility that the well-known video app could be banned on January 19 unless TikTok begins to separate from its Chinese-owned parent company.
Oral arguments about the First Amendment violations of the federal law requiring TikTok to split from parent firm ByteDance or face ban were heard by the Supreme Court on Friday.
While the federal government said the ban is required for national security due to ByteDance’s Chinese ownership, TikTok and content providers on the app contended the ban violates their First Amendment rights by halting all communication on the platform.
Since the statute is expressly targeting ByteDance, a foreign-owned corporation, and its algorithm, Justices Elena Kagan and Amy Coney Barrett expressed skepticism about TikTok’s arguments on Friday, raising doubts about how the firm’s First Amendment rights are involved.
TikTok was “wrong,” according to Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, that the case infringed on its First Amendment rights. She stated she believed the case was more about TikTok’s desire to collaborate with ByteDance than it was about its expression being suppressed.
Chief Justice John Roberts stated that the federal statute was “not a burden on” TikTok and its users’ “expression at all,” contending that Congress approved of user speech on the app as long as it wasn’t a “foreign adversary” collecting user data.
Inquiring as to whether his clients’ attachment to TikTok was like “somebody’s attachment to an old article of clothing” that could be replaced or whether ByteDance had actually developed a “magical algorithm” that no other tech company could possibly replicate, Justice Samuel Alito asked the creators of the app if they would truly suffer if TikTok disappeared or if they could simply switch to another platform.
The government’s fears about TikTok collecting data on U.S. users “seems like a huge concern for the future of the country,” Justice Brett Kavanaugh said, citing previous instances of the U.S. prohibiting television businesses from having ties to foreign governments.
“At least as I understand it, we go dark—essentially the platform shuts down,” TikTok’s attorney Noel Francisco told the court Friday regarding the implications of the federal statute if the TikTok ban is implemented. “I believe the result of this law is that it will basically cease to function.”
Is Trump in favour of Tiktok Ban?
Since he hasn’t taken office yet, President-elect Donald Trump is not a formal party in the TikTok lawsuit. However, he has filed a brief with the Supreme Court stating that he opposes the ban and requests that the court postpone the law’s implementation until after he assumes office, rather than making a decision on it before January 19. His attorneys told the court that a stay of this kind would “crucially grant President Trump the opportunity to pursue a political resolution that could obviate the Court’s need to decide these constitutionally significant questions.” Trump is not a formal party to the case, thus the court is not required to reply to his request.
Tiktok Ban – Things to Look Out For
The Supreme Court usually takes months to issue its rulings after hearing oral arguments, but in this case, it may do so in a matter of days, and the ban is expected to go into force on January 19. The court indicated that they were ready to make a decision on the ban’s fate soon by scheduling oral arguments well in advance of the deadline rather than delaying the law’s implementation when they took up the issue.
Can Trump Stop Tiktok Ban?
If the ban is implemented, Trump’s choices for rescuing TikTok are limited: If Trump pauses the law without proof that TikTok is separating from ByteDance, it might be overturned in court. As president, he has the authority to impose a 90-day hold on the statute if there is proof that the corporation is in the process of doing so. Additionally, Trump might attempt to negotiate a deal with ByteDance to sell the app or proclaim TikTok to be in conformity with the law, both of which might be contested in court if ByteDance still owns the program.
James Lewis, director of the Strategic Technologies Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told NPR that although ByteDance has not yet agreed to sell TikTok to a U.S. company, China might be convinced to accept the deal if Trump backed off from his threat of imposing high tariffs on Chinese imports. While Francisco believed the app may go black on January 19, the day before Trump’s inauguration, he recognized Friday that Trump could postpone the ban after he assumes office. After January 20, he said, the app might be “in a different world.”
What will Happen if TikTok Ban Takes Affect?
It’s still unknown what will happen and how TikTok users would be affected if the Supreme Court upholds the ban and it goes into effect on January 19—or later, if they decide to temporarily halt it until Trump takes office. If ByteDance doesn’t divest, customers won’t be able to download or update TikTok since the federal law forbids businesses like Apple and Google from hosting the software on their U.S. app stores. This implies that as the app ages, it will eventually become outdated and unusable.
Additionally, the law forbids internet service providers, such as Oracle, which manages TikTok’s user data in the United States, from facilitating the app’s dissemination. It’s unclear how that clause will affect things: According to Francisco’s statement on Friday, TikTok has stated in a filing that it has no longer been able to “provid[e]
the services necessary for the TikTok platform to operate, so shutting it down in the US. Alan Rozenshtein, a law professor at the University of Minnesota, pointed out to
CBS News However, TikTok may simply relocate those servers outside of the United States, keeping the service operational in the country for the foreseeable future. The restriction is anticipated to affect other ByteDance-owned applications like CapCut and Lemon8, although it is still unknown what would happen to other parts of TikTok’s U.S. business, such as its Creator Fund or the TikTok shop.
TikTok Ban – Background
After politicians from both parties expressed long-standing worries about TikTok’s connections to China, a federal bill mandating ByteDance to divest from the app was passed in April. TikTok has consistently denied any misconduct or connections to the Chinese government, and the government’s particular justification for the ban was presented in court under seal and has not been made public. Numerous issues with the app have been covered by Forbes, including TikTok tracking “sensitive” terms, misusing user data, boosting Chinese propaganda that disparaged American leaders, and eavesdropping on journalists.
Days after the ban was implemented, TikTok and the app’s founders sued to overturn it, but in December, a federal appeals court upheld the statute. The justices backed the government’s determination that it is essential to ban a ByteDance-owned TikTok, ruling that the restriction did not violate the First Amendment rights of TikTok and its users because all content on the app will remain accessible even if ByteDance simply divests from TikTok.
Judges contended that since the statute permits TikTok to continue functioning in the United States in the event that it splits from ByteDance, it is actually the least restrictive approach to addressing the national security issues. The Supreme Court swiftly took up the case and set oral arguments for a few weeks later after the appeals court declined to halt the law’s implementation while TikTok and its inventors appealed it.
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Shubhangi Gupta is a distinguished content writer and the visionary founder of The Unpleasant – Acha Nahi Sabse Sacha. With a Master’s degree in Commerce from University of Lucknow, Shubhangi has seamlessly blended her academic background with her passion for reading and writing, embarking on a successful career as a content writer since 2019.
