Supreme Court upholds TikTok ban, threatening app’s existence in US: NPR

The Supreme Court ruled Friday that the federal government can legally shut down TikTok in the United States, dealing a major blow to the viral video app used by about half of Americans.

Last April, President Biden signed a bipartisan bill That said, TikTok must either split from its China-based parent company or shut down in the United States.

TikTok contested the ban in court, arguing that it violates the free speech rights of users and the company – an appeal he took all the way to the Supreme Court, which heard the case on January 10.

The High Court’s ruling means that from January 19, tech giants Apple and Google will no longer be able to offer TikTok on their app stores. Web hosting providers must cut ties with the platform or face fines of $5,000 for each user who can still access the service, a penalty that can easily run into billions of dollars.

TikTok’s seemingly incessant legal limbo has caused widespread confusion among users about when and whether the app will ever actually stop working. But now the nation’s highest court has upheld the federal ban.

“There is no doubt that, for more than 170 million Americans, TikTok provides a distinctive and expansive means of expression, a means of engagement, and a source of community. But Congress has determined that divestment is necessary to address its well-supported national security concerns regarding TikTok’s data collection practices and its relationship with a foreign adversary,” the court wrote in an unsigned opinion. “We conclude that the challenged provisions do not violate petitioners’ First Amendment rights.”

The judges acknowledged the tight time frame under which they were operating, emphasizing that the ruling should be seen as applying only to TikTok, not as a sweeping precedent. “This caution is heightened in these cases, given the accelerated time frame provided for our review. Our analysis should be understood as narrowly focused in light of these circumstances,” the justices wrote.

The decision follows a emergency hearing held last week in which the justices appeared skeptical that the free speech rights of millions of U.S. TikTok users should outweigh the national security risk Congress says China poses . Lawmakers worry that the Chinese government could use the app to spy on Americans or spread pro-China propaganda, even though TikTok skeptics have never shown concrete examples of this.

When Congress passed the law targeting TikTok in April, lawmakers provided the company with a way to avoid expulsion: divest entirely from China-based parent company ByteDance, which would address lawmakers’ national security concerns and the intelligence community in Washington.

But for TikTok executives, it is only a symbolic life raft, since ByteDance has always indicated that the platform, the first global social media success in China, is not for sale. Additionally, China’s export control laws prevent the sale of TikTok’s algorithm unless regulators in Beijing approve the transaction, something Chinese experts have said the country is unlikely to do. .

The only justice to express concerns about the free speech implications of a ban was Neil Gorsuch, who called banning TikTok to eliminate the Chinese threat a “paternalistic view.”

“I mean, don’t we normally assume that the best cure for problematic speech is counter-speech?” Gorsuch said, adding that TikTok has discussed the possibility of including a disclaimer on its app indicating that some content might be secretly manipulated by China.

U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, representing the federal government, quickly dismissed the idea with this analogy: “Imagine if you walked into a store and I had a sign saying that one of the 1 million products in this store causes cancer,” she told the court. . “This will not tell you which product is actually endangering your health.”

All eyes are now on President-elect Donald Trump. He filed a brief with the Supreme Court before last week’s oral arguments, asking the justices to delay their decision to give his administration time to reach a “negotiated solution” that would resolve national security concerns.

Trump, who tried unsuccessfully ban TikTok during his first mandate, has since made an about-face and now wishes save the app. He publicly attributed his change of heart to his belief that TikTok had boosted youth participation in his favor in November. But others to have sharp as he reversed course after Trump met with a billionaire hedge fund manager whose business group owns a major stake in ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company.

The ban on TikTok will come into effect on January 19. The next day, Trump will be sworn in.

Once in the White House, Trump can direct his Justice Department not to enforce the ban. This would put Apple, Google and other companies that do business with TikTok in an awkward position, since these companies would technically be violating federal law.

Another scenario is that Trump could extend the effective date of the ban, even though it will have already started on January 19.

“As I understand it, we have closed our doors. It is possible that on January 20, 21 and 22 we will be in a different world,” TikTok lawyer Noel Francisco told the court last week, suggesting that maybe Trump could pause the ban.

Indeed, under the law, the president can delay the ban for a period of 90 days, but only in the event that progress has been made towards a sale out of ByteDance.

Prelogar, along with the federal government, told the court during oral arguments that if the ban goes into effect, it might just give the U.S. government enough leverage to convince ByteDance and Chinese regulators to allow the sale of TikTok to a company American or a group of American investors. .

“When push comes to shove and these restrictions come into effect, I think it will fundamentally change the landscape in terms of what ByteDance is willing to take into account, and it could be just the shock that Congress has been waiting for “that the company needs to move forward with the divestment process,” she said.