THE Supreme Court On Friday, the law requiring Chinese company ByteDance to cede its ownership of TikTok by Sunday or face an effective ban of the popular social video app in the United States
ByteDance has so far refused to sell TikTok, meaning many US users could lose access to the application this weekend. The app may still work for those who already have TikTok on their phone, although ByteDance has also threatened to shut down the app.
In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court sided with the Biden administration, upholding the Protecting Americans from Apps Controlled by Foreign Adversaries Act, which the president signed into law. Joe Biden sign in April.
“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,” the Supreme Court opinion said. “But Congress has determined that divestment is necessary to address its well-founded national security concerns about TikTok’s data collection practices and its dealings with a foreign adversary.”
Supreme Court Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Neil Gorsuch wrote concurring opinions.
The fate of TikTok in the United States is now in the hands of the president-elect Donald Trumpwho initially favored a ban on TikTok during his first administration, but has since flip-flopped on the issue. In December, Trump request the Supreme Court for suspend the application of the law and give his administration “the opportunity to seek a political resolution of the issues at issue in this matter.”
Trump began speaking more favorably about TikTok after met in February with billionaire Republican megadonor Jeff Yass. Yass is a major investor in ByteDance who also has a stake in the owner of Social truthTrump’s social media platform.
Trump will be inaugurated Monday, a day after TikTok’s sales deadline. Shou Chew, CEO of TikTok is one of many technology leaders should be presentsitting on the platform.
The nation’s highest court said in its opinion that while “data collection and analysis is common practice in the digital age,” TikTok’s sheer size and “susceptibility to control by foreign adversaries, as well that the vast swathes of sensitive data that the platform collects “poses a national security problem.
By law, third-party Internet service providers such as Apple And Google will be penalized for supporting a ByteDance-owned TikTok after the January 19 deadline.
If internet service providers and app store owners comply, they will remove TikTok from their respective app stores, preventing users from downloading TikTok or installing updates necessary to make the app functional .
Representatives for TikTok did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre reiterated President Biden’s support for the law in a statement, saying that “TikTok should remain accessible to Americans, but simply under U.S. ownership or other ownership that meets national security concerns identified by Congress in crafting this law. “
“Given the timing, this administration recognizes that steps to implement the law must simply fall to the next administration, which takes office on Monday,” Pierre said.
Kate Ruane, director of the nonprofit Center for Democracy and Technology, criticized the Supreme Court’s decision, saying in a statement that it “harms the free expression of hundreds of millions of TikTok users in this country and in the world.”
“Individuals use the app to create, share information, obtain information, comment on current issues, and promote their businesses – this is precisely the kind of expression the First Amendment is supposed to protect,” Ruane said .
In December, members of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party sent letters to Apple CEO Tim Cook and Google CEO Sundar Pichai, in which they urged executives to start preparing to comply with the law and reminded them of their duties as store operators. applications.
Last Friday, the The Supreme Court heard oral arguments lawyers representing TikTok, content creators and the US government. TikTok’s lead attorney, Noel Francisco, argued that the law violates the First Amendment rights of the app’s 170 million U.S. users. Meanwhile, U.S. Attorney General Elizabeth Prelogar countered that the app’s alleged ties to the People’s Republic of China through its parent company ByteDance posed a threat to national security.
After oral arguments concluded, several legal experts said the nation’s highest court appeared to be more sympathetic to the U.S. government’s case over TikTok’s alleged questionable ties to the Chinese government.
Many TikTok creators have asked their fans to find them on competing social platforms like Google’s YouTube and Meta’s Facebook and Instagram, CNBC. reported. Additionally, Instagram executives planned meetings after last Friday’s Supreme Court hearing to ask workers to prepare for a surge of users if the court follows the law, according to the CNBC report.
Chinese social media app and RedNote, a TikTok lookalike, rose to the top from the Apple App Store on Monday, indicating that TikTok’s millions of users were looking for alternatives.
The Chinese government has also weighed emergency plan This would lead Elon Musk to acquire TikTok’s US operations in several options intended to prevent its effective ban from being enforced in the United States, Bloomberg News reported Monday. The plan was one of several being considered by the Chinese government as part of broader discussions involving collaboration with the incoming Trump White House, according to the report.
In the event that ByteDance decides to sell TikTok to a US company or investor group, potential buyers could have to pay between $40 billion and $50 billionaccording to an estimate from CFRA Research Senior Vice President Angelo Zino.
WATCH: SCOTUS hears TikTok ban case.
