The US Supreme Court has upheld the law mandating China-based ByteDance to divest its ownership of TikTok by Sunday, or face an effective ban of the popular video-sharing app in the United States. The ruling underscores growing national security concerns tied to TikTok’s data collection practices and alleged links to the Chinese government,
US Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch called on Congress or the judiciary’s committee responsible for drafting rules for federal courts to address the government’s use of classified evidence that’s shielded from litigants.
The Supreme Court seemed to lean Thursday toward upholding a law forcing Chinese parent company ByteDance to sell off TikTok, with all nine justices indicating national security concerns posed by the social media app outweighed potential threats to free speech.
The exception was Justice Neil Gorsuch, who seemed open to TikTok ... Congress worried that ByteDance would hoover up data on TikTok’s 170 million U.S. users. Under Chinese law, ByteDance ...
TikTok and people who use the popular app raised First Amendment arguments against the law that would curb its U.S. operations.
The federal law was the culmination of a yearslong saga over TikTok, which the government sees as a national security threat due to its connections in China.
After years on the brink, TikTok’s clock has run out as the U.S. Supreme Court today upheld a lower court ruling that the app owned by China’s ByteDance must sell itself or be banned in the U.S. on Jan.
The justices found the government’s concerns over potential privacy abuses at TikTok persuasive, especially if users oblige the TikTok app’s requests for contacts and calendar data.
TikTok is reportedly prepared to shut down its app on Sunday, when the ban is scheduled to take effect, though the actual language of the law technically only mandates that the social media platform be taken off of app stores to prevent new users from downloading it.
"I cannot profess the kind of certainty I would like to have about the arguments and record before us," writes Justice Gorsuch.
The Supreme Court unanimously found the new law that could lead to a ban of TikTok does not violate the First Amendment rights of the platform or its users.