The US Supreme Court on Friday upheld a law that could pave the way for a US ban of TikTok to take effect as soon as Sunday.
The law, signed by President Joe Biden last year, would effectively ban the app in the US if TikTok’s China-based parent company, ByteDance, doesn’t sell it to a buyer deemed fit by US officials by Jan. 19. TikTok sued over the law, claiming it violated First Amendment guarantees of freedom of speech for the company and TikTok’s 170 million users in the US.
The justices weren’t persuaded by that argument. In its ruling, the Supreme Court said that while TikTok is “a distinctive and expansive outlet for expression, means of engagement, and source of community,” Congress has determined that a sale is needed to “address its well-supported national security concerns regarding TikTok’s data collection practices and relationship with a foreign adversary.”
“For the foregoing reasons, we conclude that the challenged provisions do not violate petitioners’ First Amendment rights,” the court said.
Attorney General Merrick Garland said the court’s decision will allow the Justice Department to prevent the Chinese government from “weaponizing TikTok to undermine America’s national security.”
“Authoritarian regimes should not have unfettered access to millions of Americans’ sensitive data,” Garland said in a Justice Department statement.
In a video posted Friday on TikTok and other social media platforms, TikTok CEO Shou Chew didn’t address what TikTok planned to do, or what its American users would see when they opened up their apps after the deadline passed. Instead, he thanked incoming President Donald Trump for pledging to work with TikTok to find a solution that will keep the app running in the US.
“We are grateful and pleased to have the support of a president who truly understands our platform — one who has used TikTok to express his own thoughts and perspectives, connecting with the world and generating more than 60 billion views of his content in the process,” Chew said.
Lawyers for TikTok and the US government pleaded their cases in oral arguments before the court late last week, pitting First Amendment perspectives against national security concerns. Based on the questions and comments made by the justices during the more than two-hour-long hearing, it appeared that they were more on board with the government’s argument the case wasn’t about free speech and instead had to do with the dangers posed by foreign adversaries, in this case China.
Read more: Downloads, Trump and VPNs: Everything to Know About the Potential TikTok Ban
Lawmakers in both political parties have long voiced concerns that TikTok could be a threat to national security and could be used by the Chinese government to spy on Americans or spread disinformation to further China’s agenda.
TikTok continues to deny those accusations. Ahead of votes in Congress last year, TikTok rallied its US users, calling on them to urge their representatives on Capitol Hill to vote down a ban. But the measure ultimately passed by wide margins in both chambers of Congress.
It remains unclear what will happen to TikTok both over the next few days and in the long term.
Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said in the DOJ’s statement that the next phase of the department’s efforts to break TikTok’s connections to China, which will involve implementing and enforcing the law after it goes into effect on Sunday, “will be a process that plays out over time.”
The White House issued a statement Friday saying that Biden’s position on TikTok hasn’t changed. He still believes that TikTok should remain available to Americans, but under ownership that satisfies the government’s national security concerns.
“Given the sheer fact of timing, this administration recognizes that actions to implement the law simply must fall to the next administration, which takes office on Monday,” the statement said.
On Thursday, a Biden administration official told ABC News that the White House doesn’t plan to enforce the law during the remaining days before Donald Trump is sworn in as president on Monday, Jan. 20.
Trump, who pushed for a ban during his first term, now says he’s no longer in favor of one. In late December, lawyers for Trump filed an amicus brief in the case. They didn’t take a side but instead ask the court to delay the ban to give Trump time to come up with a “political resolution.”
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