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The ruling is expected to go down as among the most consequential court decisions of the digital media age.
By Winston Cho
In a ruling that will ripple across digital media, the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld a law effectively subjecting TikTok to a national ban on Sunday. Absent an 11th-hour lifeline from President-elect Donald Trump, who has said he can reach a deal to rescue the app, the massively popular social media platform used by roughly half the country will be shut down.
The justices, in a ruling issued on Friday, concluded that the law isn’t in direct conflict with the First Amendment because it’s aimed at TikTok’s ownership of a company alleged to be controlled by China rather than its free speech rights. The law directs ByteDance, the app’s parent company, to sell TikTok by Jan. 19. If not, web-hosting services and mobile app stores will be barred from carrying TikTok.
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“There is no doubt that, for more than 170 million Americans, TikTok offers a distinctive and expansive outlet for expression, means of engagement, and source of community,” the justices wrote in their ruling. “But Congress has determined that divestiture is necessary to address its well-supported national security concerns regarding TikTok’s data collection practices and relationship with a foreign adversary. For the foregoing reasons, we conclude that the challenged provisions do not violate petitioners’ First Amendment rights.”
With more than 150 million American monthly active users, the app has been integrated into American culture to an extraordinary degree. It’s by far the leading video-sharing app in the country in terms of attracting and holding users’ attention. The ban will disrupt the income streams of hundreds of thousands of creators. Meta and Google are already moving in to fill the short-form video void left by TikTok, with the companies expected to see huge spikes to their ad businesses.
Ahead of the ruling, there were murmurs that Trump, whose term begins a day after the ban takes effect, would issue an executive order suspending enforcement of the shutdown for up to 90 days, though it remains unknown the legal avenue he can take. Last month, he filed a friend-of-the-court brief looking to delay implementation of the law, saying he could find a solution that would balance the national security and First Amendment considerations posed by the ban. Overall, he signaled his support for TikTok’s opposition to the law, which he said “exercises an extraordinary power” in effectively shutting down a massively popular platform critical to free speech.
Government officials and lawmakers have repeatedly said TikTok poses a national security threat due to its ties to ByteDance. Thus far, they’ve offered no evidence that the company has provided user data to the Chinese government or that it’s been directed to influence the content users see on the platform.
TikTok’s opposition to the ban was grounded, in part, in its function as a source of news. It said its algorithm recommending or blocking certain news items to users constitutes the free speech protected under the First Amendment.
The company also argued that the government can’t dictate the ownership of website, newspapers and online platforms, among other privately-created speech forums.
In response, the government claimed that the law subjecting TikTok to the ban is necessary to prevent China from spreading misinformation and curb the collection of Americans’ private information
Justice Brett Kavanaugh stressed during oral arguments earlier this month that “Congress and the president were concerned” that “China was accessing information about millions of Americans, tens of millions of Americans, including teenagers, people in their 20s.”
That concern was reflected in the Court’s ruling:
“For the reasons we have explained, requiring divestiture for the purpose of preventing a foreign adversary from accessing the sensitive data of 170 million U. S. TikTok users is not ‘a subtle means of exercising a content preference,” the Court wrote. “The prohibitions, TikTok-specific designation, and divestiture requirement regulate TikTok based on a content-neutral data collection interest. And TikTok has special characteristics—a foreign adversary’s ability to leverage its control over the platform to collect vast amounts of personal data from 170 million U. S. users—that justify this differential treatment.”
With TikTok’s future now firmly in doubt, other tech companies are already beginning to plan how they can steal TikTok creators and users, with some, like Snapchat, planning public campaigns to lure them to their own platforms.
Alex Weprin contributed to this report.
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