On Friday, the US Supreme Court affirmed a law that would prohibit TikTok in the US, potentially depriving 170 million US users of the video-sharing app on January 19.
In a major defeat for TikTok, the court ruled that the law does not violate free speech rights and that the US government had demonstrated legitimate national security concerns about a Chinese company owning the app.
TikTok‘s Chinese parent company ByteDance has until Sunday to sell the platform under federal legislation signed into law by President Joe Biden last spring. If the Beijing-based company fails to do so, TikTok will be banned in the U.S., making it illegal for U.S. internet hosting services and app stores to distribute the platform. The legislation comes amid concerns by some government officials who believe the platform is a national security threat, as ByteDance could be sharing U.S. user data with the Chinese government.
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The Supreme Court heard oral arguments last week from TikTok, which claims the ban is an unconstitutional breach of Americans’ First Amendment rights. The platform asked the Supreme Court to put a halt on the ban. As of Thursday morning, SCOTUS had not released a decision.
President-elect Donald Trump will be sworn into office on Monday, Jan. 20, the day after the ban is to be set in place. Though he previously supported a ban on the platform, Trump asked SCOTUS last month to put a hold on the deadline to give his incoming administration “the opportunity to pursue a political resolution of the questions at issue in the case.”
