The US Supreme Court upheld a law on Friday that could lead to a ban on TikTok in the United States this Sunday. involvement, and community resources,” the court’s unanimous opinion read. “But Congress has determined that divestment is necessary to address well-supported national security concerns about TikTok’s data collection practices and ties to foreign adversaries.” app for US users on Sunday, the deadline time for an extension. For more than five years, US government officials have tried to ban or force the sale of TikTok, accusing the Chinese-owned company of sharing American user data with the Chinese government and filling its feed with pro-China propaganda. Congress and agencies like the FBI are not giving much information to the public which confirmed the allegations, but tried various ways to ban TikTok. In 2020, former president Donald Trump first tried to ban TikTok through an executive order. Finally, President Joe Biden signed a law on April 24, 2024 that required the parent company TikTok, Byteance, to sell the app to its American owner on January 19 or be removed from the US app store. Quickly defying the ban, TikTok and a group of creators quickly filed a lawsuit against the Department of Justice, arguing that the law, the Protecting Americans From Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, violates First Amendment rights. lawyer Noel Francisco, and Jeffrey Fisher, who represented the creator, tried to drive home that question. For the government, public defender Elizabeth Prelogar argued that the law did not violate the defendants’ free speech rights, and instead excluded the application from the influence of Bytedance and China. Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in a concurring opinion. “Whether this law will succeed in achieving its goal, I don’t know. A designated alien enemy can simply replace the lost surveillance application with another. As time passes and threats evolve, less dramatic and more effective solutions may emerge. The judge wrote that the law does not regulate the speech of TikTok or its creators, but targets the app and Bytedance’s corporate structure. opinions are read. “And direct management of Bytedance Ltd. and TikTok only through divestment terms.” The judges noted that their decision should be seen as “narrowly focused” and applied to TikTok. “TikTok’s scale and vulnerability to foreign adversary control, along with the vast amounts of sensitive data the platform collects, justify differential treatment to address the Government’s national security concerns,” the opinion said.
