Topline
Justices on the Supreme Court signaled Friday they may uphold the federal law banning TikTok unless it divests itself from ByteDance, expressing skepticism of TikTok’s opposition to the law during oral arguments, increasing the likelihood the popular video app could be banned Jan. 19 unless TikTok starts separating from its Chinese-owned parent company.
Tiffany Cianci, who says she is a “long form educational content creator,” livestreams to TikTok … [+]
Key Facts
The Supreme Court heard oral arguments Friday over whether the federal law—which requires TikTok to separate from parent company ByteDance or else be banned—is in violation of the First Amendment.
TikTok and content creators on the app argued the ban violates their First Amendment rights by cutting off all speech on the platform, while the federal government argued the ban is necessary for national security, given ByteDance’s Chinese ownership.
Justices on both sides of the aisle appeared skeptical of TikTok’s arguments on Friday, with Justice Elena Kagan questioning how TikTok’s First Amendment rights are implicated when the law is specifically targeting ByteDance—a foreign-owned company—and its algorithm.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett similarly suggested that the law is targeting ByteDance and its discretion over its algorithm, rather than TikTok, and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said she thought the case was more about TikTok wanting to associate with ByteDance than its speech being silenced, suggesting TikTok is “wrong” that the case violates its First Amendment rights since it can still publish its speech if it separates from ByteDance.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh brought up past examples of the U.S. blocking broadcasting companies from having ties to foreign governments and brought up the government’s concerns about TikTok collecting data on U.S. users, which he said “seems like a huge concern for the future of the country.”
Crucial Quote
If the TikTok ban takes effect, “At least as I understand it, we go dark—essentially the platform shuts down,” TikTok’s lawyer Noel Francisco told the court Friday about the impact of the federal law. “It’s essentially gonna stop operating, I think that’s the consequence of this law.”
What To Watch For
While it typically takes months for the Supreme Court to release its opinions following oral arguments, the decision in this case could come within days, before the ban is slated to take effect Jan. 19. The court declined to pause the law from taking effect when they took up the case, instead scheduling oral arguments swiftly before the deadline, suggesting they’re prepared to rule imminently on the ban’s fate.
Is Trump In Favor Of The Tiktok Ban?
President-elect Donald Trump is not a formal party in TikTok’s legal dispute, since he hasn’t taken office yet, but the president-elect has filed a brief with the Supreme Court saying he opposes the ban and asks the court to pause the law from taking effect until after he takes office, rather than rule quickly on it before Jan. 19. “Such a stay would vitally grant President Trump the opportunity to pursue a political resolution that could obviate the Court’s need to decide these constitutionally significant questions,” his lawyers argued to the court. The court is not bound to respond to Trump’s request, since he’s not a formal party in the case.
Can Trump Stop The Tiktok Ban?
Trump has few options to save TikTok if the ban takes effect: As president, he can order a 90-day pause on the law if there’s evidence TikTok is in the process of separating from ByteDance, but so far the company is unwilling to do so, and if Trump pauses the law without that evidence, it could get overturned in court. Trump could also try and declare TikTok is in compliance with the law—but if it’s still owned by ByteDance, that could similarly get challenged in court—or try to negotiate an agreement with ByteDance for it to sell the app. While ByteDance has so far been unwilling to sell TikTok to a U.S. company, James Lewis, director of the Strategic Technologies Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told NPR China could possibly be persuaded to approve of ByteDance selling TikTok in exchange for Trump backing off his threat of high tariffs on Chinese imports. Francisco acknowledged Friday that Trump could pause the ban once he takes office, saying that while he thought the app could go dark on Jan. 19, one day before Trump’s inauguration, the app could be “in a different world” after Jan. 20.
What Happens If The Tiktok Ban Takes Effect?
If the Supreme Court upholds the ban and it takes effect on Jan. 19—or later, should they temporarily pause it until Trump takes office—it’s still unclear what will happen and what the impact will be for TikTok users. The federal law prohibits companies like Apple and Google from hosting TikTok on their U.S. app stores, unless ByteDance divests, which means that users would no longer be able to download TikTok or update the app. That means the app would eventually be rendered obsolete and unusable as it gets out of date. The law also prohibits internet service providers from enabling TikTok’s distribution, like Oracle, which handles TikTok’s U.S. user data. The impacts of that provision are less clear: As Francisco said Friday, TikTok has claimed that it would mean the company could shut down, saying in a filing it could no longer “provid[e]
the services that enable the TikTok platform to function, effectively shutting down TikTok in the United States.” University of Minnesota law professor Alan Rozenshtein noted to CBS News TikTok could just move those servers out of the U.S., however, which would keep TikTok online in the U.S.—at least in the short term, before the app becomes outdated. It’s still unclear what will happen to other aspects of TikTok’s U.S. operations, like its Creator Fund or the TikTok shop, but the ban is expected to impact other ByteDance-owned apps like CapCut and Lemon8.
Key Background
The federal law requiring ByteDance to divest from TikTok was enacted in April following longstanding concerns by lawmakers on both sides of the aisle about the app’s ties to China. TikTok has long denied any wrongdoing or links to the Chinese government, and the government’s specific evidence justifying the ban has not been made public and was filed in court under seal. Forbes has reported on numerous concerns involving the app, including TikTok spying on journalists, promoting Chinese propaganda that criticized U.S. politicians, mishandling user data and tracking “sensitive” words. TikTok and creators on the app filed lawsuits against the ban days after it was enacted, but a federal appeals court ruled against them in December, upholding the law. The panel of judges ruled the ban did not violate TikTok and its users’ First Amendment rights—because all content on the app will still be available if ByteDance just divests from TikTok—and upheld the government’s assessment that banning a ByteDance-owned TikTok is necessary. Judges argued the law is actually the least restrictive way of dealing with the national security concerns, given that it allows TikTok to continue operating in the U.S. if it separates from ByteDance. TikTok and creators went to the Supreme Court after the appeals court then refused to pause the law from taking effect while it appealed the case, and the Supreme Court quickly took it up and scheduled oral arguments for just weeks later.
Further Reading
This article was originally published by a www.forbes.com . Read the Original article here. .