It’s looking more and more likely that TikTok will be banned in the United States on January 19, after the United States Supreme Court heard arguments on the case on Friday. During the arguments, the Supremes indicated that its leaning toward letting the ban go forward, according to a report from Bloomberg.
The majority of the justices indicated they had worries over U.S. national security overrides free speech, and expressed concerns about the personal data that TikTok collects from users, how the social network manipulates content, and the influence that China has over TikTok parent company ByteDance.
Justice Elena Kagan did not agree with TikTok’s argument that its constitutional rights were being violated. “The law is only targeted at this foreign corporation, which doesn’t have First Amendment rights,” she said.
Justice John Roberts chimed in, saying that “Congress is fine with the expression,” but “not fine with a foreign adversary … gathering all this information about the 170 million people who use TikTok.” He also questioned China’s influence on ByteDance. “Are we supposed to ignore the fact that the ultimate parent is in fact subject to doing intelligence work for the Chinese government?” he quizzed TikTok’s lawyer.
The Supreme Court could hand down a ruling on TikTok before January 19, or postpone the law going into effect to allow more time for consideration. TikTok has requested that the court delay the ban while it waits for the appeals process to play out. However, the court decided to hear the case ahead of January 19.
If the court upholds the ban, U.S. app stores (including Apple’s App Store and Google’s Play Store) will not be able to offer the TikTok app for download of January 19. While TikTok users who already have the app installed on their devices will be able to continue using it, updates will not be permitted.
ByteDance will need to sell TikTok to a company approved by the U.S. government to allow the app to continue to be available. While a sale is not likely to happen before the January 19 deadline, the app could be reinstated after a sale is completed. Unfortunately, ByteDance says a sale is not possible, as the Chinese government will not approve the sale of TikTok and its algorithm.
