After its first day of deliberations on Friday, the Supreme Court appears to lean toward upholding the TikTok ban, but did not conclude discussions.
TikTok’s lawyer, Noel Francisco seemed optimistic, however, noting: “This country has never taken a step of shutting down a speech platform, much less such an important speech platform. You don’t shut down a speech platform because you’re worried about speech that’s dangerous.”
The Chinese embassy meanwhile criticized the ban, noting in a statement, “The U.S. has never found evidence that TikTok threatens U.S. national security, but it has used state power and abused national security reasons to unreasonably suppress it, which is not fair or just at all. The U.S. should truly respect the principles of market economy and fair competition, stop unreasonably suppressing companies from other countries, and provide an open, fair, just and non-discriminatory environment for companies from all countries to invest and operate in the U.S.”
TikTok swept into the social media landscape with an enviable force. It seemed to totally capture the hearts and minds of the youngest generations among us with its addictive platform that offers you short-form video after short-form video. Even millennials are not immune to TikTok’s wiles.
For some, influencers and artists alike, TikTok has also been a lucrative place to grow a business and make a living.
But now, the TikTok ban threatens to outlaw TikTok from the US. If the ban becomes an active law as planned, TikTok will be banned from the United States beginning on January 20. Currently, only the Supreme Court stands between the federal law being enacted and not.
The platform, which has over 170 million US citizens using the app, was put on a path to be banned in the country after a bill was signed by Biden. In April 2024, the Senate presented the US President with a law that dictated that TikTok must be sold to US ownership by January 19 or it would face this ban.
Additionally, the law stated that TikTok would have a 90-day extension if the transfer of ownership will be in progress by January from its Chinese parent company, ByteDance.
The reason the Senate is pushing for a TikTok ban is that they feel the application’s ties with ByteDance might compromise national security. The Justice Department’s filings stated that the app “collects vast swaths of data about tens of millions of Americans” which China could misuse “for espionage or blackmail.”
The Justice Department further noted: “TikTok may continue operating in the United States and presenting the same content from the same users in the same manner if its current owner executes a divestiture that frees the platform from the [People’s Republic of China’s] control.”
