Fighting for its survival in the United States, TikTok appealed to the Supreme Court to block a law that requires its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to sell the app by January 19 or face a ban.
TikTok and ByteDance filed an emergency request for judges to issue an injunction halting the impending ban on the social media app used by about 170 million Americans while they appeal a lower court ruling that upheld the law. A group of American users of the app also filed a similar request on Monday.
Congress approved the law in April. The Justice Department has said that as a Chinese company, TikTok represents “a national security threat of immense depth and scale” due to its access to large amounts of data on American users, from locations to private messages, and its ability to secretly manipulate content that Americans see on the app.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in Washington on Dec. 6 rejected TikTok’s arguments that the law violates free speech protections under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
In their Supreme Court filing, TikTok and ByteDance said that “if Americans, properly informed of the alleged risks of ‘covert’ content manipulation, choose to continue viewing content on TikTok with their eyes wide open, the First Amendment entrusts them with the task of making that choice, free from government censorship.”
“And if the D.C. Circuit’s contrary position holds, then Congress will be free to prohibit any American from speaking simply by identifying some risk that the speech is influenced by a foreign entity,” they added.
The companies said shutting down even for a month would cause TikTok to lose about a third of its American users and undermine its ability to attract advertisers and recruit talented content creators and employees.
TikTok, which calls itself one of the “most important speech platforms” used in the United States, has said there is no imminent threat to US national security and that delaying enforcement of the law would allow the Supreme Court to consider the legality of the ban. and the incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump to also evaluate the law.
Trump, who tried unsuccessfully to ban TikTok during his first term in 2020, changed his stance and promised during this year’s presidential race that he would try to save TikTok. Trump will take office on Jan. 20, one day after TikTok’s deadline under the law.
The law would “shut down one of America’s most popular speech platforms the day before the presidential inauguration,” the companies said in their filing. “A federal law that singles out and bans a speech platform used by half of Americans is extraordinary.”
Asked at a news conference Monday what he would do to stop the TikTok ban, Trump said he has “a warm place in my heart for TikTok” and would “take a look” at the issue.
The companies asked the Supreme Court to issue a decision on their request by January 6 to allow, if it is rejected, the “complex task of shutting down TikTok” in the United States and coordinate with service providers before the deadline. established in accordance with the law.
The dispute comes amid rising trade tensions between China and the United States, the world’s two largest economies.
“Rigorous scrutiny”
TikTok has denied ever sharing or sharing US user data, accusing US lawmakers of promoting speculative concerns.
TikTok spokesman Michael Hughes said after the filing that “we are asking the court to do what it has traditionally done in free speech cases: apply the most rigorous scrutiny to speech bans and conclude that they violate the First Amendment.” “.
In its ruling, the D.C. Circuit wrote: “The First Amendment exists to protect freedom of speech in the United States. Here the government acted solely to protect that freedom from a foreign adversary nation and to limit that adversary’s ability to collect data about people in the country”. USA.”
Without a court order, banning TikTok would make the company much less valuable to ByteDance and its investors, and would hurt companies that rely on TikTok to drive their sales.
The law would prohibit providing certain services to TikTok and other apps controlled by foreign adversaries, including offering them through app stores such as Apple AAPL.O and Alphabet’s Google, effectively preventing their continued use in the United States unless ByteDance divests. TikTok before the deadline.
A ban could open the door to a future US crackdown on other foreign-owned apps. In 2020, Trump attempted to ban WeChat, owned by Chinese company Tencent, but was blocked by the courts.
