Supreme Court justices posed tough questions to the lawyer representing TikTok and its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, on Friday over a law that would force a sale or ban the widely used short-video app by Jan. 19 in the United States in a case that pits free speech rights against national security concerns.
TikTok and ByteDance, as well as some users who post content on the app, have challenged a law passed by Congress with strong bipartisan support last year and signed by outgoing Democratic President Joe Biden, whose administration is defending it.
During arguments in the case, the nine justices probed the nature of TikTok’s speech rights and the government’s concerns over national security — that the app would enable China’s government to spy on Americans and carry out covert influence operations.
TikTok, ByteDance and the app users appealed a lower court’s ruling that upheld the law and rejected their argument that it violates the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment protection against government abridging free speech.
The Supreme Court’s consideration of the case comes at a time of rising trade tensions between the world’s two biggest economies. Republican Donald Trump, due to begin his second term as president on Jan. 20, opposes the ban, though that wasn’t always the case in his first four years as president.
Is TikTok really a national security threat, or is the U.S. unfairly picking on a Chinese-owned company? The National’s Ian Hanomansing asks digital security watchers Christian Leuprecht and Julia Angwin to break down the pros and cons of a potential ban.
Noel Francisco, a lawyer for TikTok and ByteDance, told the justices that the app is one of the most popular speech platforms for Americans and that it would essentially shut down on Jan. 19.
Francisco told conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh that on that date “at least as I understand it we [TikTok] go dark. Essentially, platform shuts down unless there’s a divestiture, unless President Trump exercises his authority to extend it.” But Trump does not take office until Jan. 20, Francisco said.
“It is possible that come Jan. 20th, 21st or 22nd, we might be in a different world,” Francisco said, which he called one of the reasons why the justices should issue a temporary pause on the law to “buy everybody a little bit of breathing space.”
Responding to Justice Amy Coney Barrett, Francisco said it could take “many years” for ByteDance to divest TikTok.
Francisco, once solicitor general in the Trump administration, cited the president-elect’s stance on the case.
He asked the justices to, at a minimum, put a temporary hold on the law, “which will allow you to carefully consider this momentous issue and, for the reasons explained by the president-elect, potentially moot the case.”
Conservative Justice Samuel Alito also floated the possibility of the court issuing what…
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