The U.S. Supreme Court is likely to uphold a law that bans the operation of the video streaming site TikTok in the United States unless it is sold by its parent company based in China.
Arguments suggesting that the national security threat posed by the company’s ties to China seem to outweigh concerns regarding the restriction of free speech for TikTok or its 170 million users in the U.S.
Chief Justice John Roberts highlighted what he deemed the primary issue: TikTok's ownership by the Chinese company ByteDance and the requirement to cooperate with the Chinese government.
If the law, which was passed by a bipartisan majority in Congress and signed by President Joe Biden in April, remains in effect, TikTok will have to "go dark" on January 19, attorney Noel Francisco stated on behalf of TikTok.
1Francisco urged the justices to consider a temporary pause that would allow TikTok to continue operating.
"Perhaps after the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump on January 20, we may find ourselves in a different world," he said.
Trump, who has 14.7 million followers on TikTok, has also called for an extension of the deadline to give him time to negotiate a "political settlement."
However, it remains unclear whether the justices will agree to this.
Only Justice Neil Gorsuch indicated that he would side with TikTok, acknowledging that the ban infringes upon the Constitution.
Gorsuch described the arguments put forth by the Biden administration in defense of the law as "paternalistic."
He noted that TikTok had offered to display a warning that its content could be manipulated by the Chinese government.
2"Don't we usually consider that the best remedy for problematic speech is counter-speech?" he asked Attorney General Elizabeth Prelogar, who defended the law under the Biden administration.
However, according to Prelogar, a single warning would not be sufficient to combat the spread of misinformation.
Francisco and attorney Jeffrey Fisher, representing TikTok content creators and users, repeatedly attempted to draw the court's attention to the First Amendment restrictions that would be placed on TikTok and its users, jeopardizing the livelihoods of creators if the law is enacted.
But these arguments were met with skepticism from all the justices except Gorsuch.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh expressed concerns that China could gain access to information about tens of millions of Americans, including teenagers and people in their 20s, among whom TikTok is immensely popular.
3"This is a concern for the future of the country," Kavanaugh stated.
Roberts downplayed Fisher's argument that the TikTok ban violates the free speech rights of American users.
"Congress is not against expression of opinions," Roberts said. "They are concerned that a foreign adversary, as they have defined, is collecting all this information about 170 million people who use TikTok."
ByteDance has stated that it will not sell the short video creation platform. According to Francisco, a sale may prove impossible under the conditions outlined in the law.
If TikTok is not sold to an approved buyer, federal law would prohibit app stores like Apple and Google from offering it. It would also ban internet hosting services from hosting TikTok.
Users of TikTok who already have the app on their phones will retain access. However, new users will not be able to download the app, and existing users will no longer receive updates.
4This will ultimately render the app inoperable, according to Justice Department court documents.
Meanwhile, TikTok has been "aware" since 2020, during Trump’s first term, that its sale may be required if it fails to meet U.S. government national security demands.
In the U.S., TikTok is referred to as a Chinese "Trojan horse." U.S. officials argue that the vast amount of user data collected by the company, including sensitive information about users’ habits, could fall into the hands of the Chinese government as a result of coercion.
They are also concerned that TikTok's own algorithm, which determines what users see in the app, is vulnerable to manipulation by Chinese authorities, who may pressure ByteDance to shape content on the platform in ways that are difficult to detect.
5TikTok, which sued the government last year over the law, has long denied that it could be used as a tool for Beijing.
The company negotiated with the Biden administration in 2021-2022 to resolve issues related to data privacy in the U.S. and potential algorithmic manipulation.
In court documents, the company accused the administration of essentially abandoning those negotiations after presenting a draft agreement in August 2022.
However, the Justice Department stated that the Biden administration found this proposal "insufficient," as it would maintain TikTok's ties to China.
According to the department, the executive branch also could not "trust ByteDance to comply with the terms, nor detect noncompliance before it became too late."
The justices are expected to make a decision on this case in the coming days, almost certainly before the January 19 deadline.