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“Whether you call (the law) a divesture or a ban, one thing is clear: It’s a speech burden on TikTok, so the First Amendment applies,” TikTok’s lawyers argued. at the US Supreme Court on Friday.
Today’s Supreme Court hearings mark the beginning of the end of TikTok’s protracted legal battle against the US government. The hearing began at 10 a.m. ET and lasted more than two hours. At that time, lawyers for TikTok and US solicitor general Elizabeth Prelogar presented their preliminary arguments and answered questions from the Justices.
As in previous court proceedings, the US government has argued that the popular video app poses a threat to national security and is being used by the Chinese government to spy on Americans. TikTok has steadfastly denied the accusations, saying the 2024 law — passed by wide margins in both houses of Congress and signed into law by President Biden — violates First Amendment rights. or the 170 million active users of TikTok in the US. The hearings come just nine days before the looming divest-or-ban deadline of January 19.
Check it out: US vs. TikTok: What Happens Next
TikTok’s lawyer Noel Francisco began the hearing. The Justices asked a lot of questions to understand the relationship between TikTok US and its parent company based in China – in particular, what is the risk of “manipulation of hidden content” and what exactly it means. For the purpose of the hearing, the phrase refers to the potential for politically motivated actors to adjust TikTok’s algorithms to change the videos that users see.
A sticking point in the hearing is the secret evidence submitted by the US government, something that has not been resolved in the lower court proceedings. While the Justices questioned Francisco, a Justice inquiry confirmed that with that evidence, the US government “admits that it has no evidence that TikTok is engaged in covert manipulation of content in this country,” but both The two sides disagree on whether ByteDance is “responding to the PRC’s request to censor content outside of China.”
Prelogar concluded the hearing, saying in his opening statement, “TikTok’s vast data sets will provide the PRC with a powerful tool for harassment, recruitment and espionage.” He raised concerns that not only the users’ data is at risk, but other people in their contacts, and expressed a concern that especially the data of teenagers and children are at risk.
One of the most notable moments of the hearing was when Prelogar argued that ByteDance would use the social platform to sow discord among Americans and distract them from manipulating the Chinese, to which Chief Justice Roberts responded, “ByteDance maybe, through TikTok, trying to get. Americans to argue with each other?
What’s next for TikTok?
The next step is to analyze the Court and then finally rule on the case. We do not know when it will issue its decision.
If the Supreme Court decides that the law violates the First Amendment, the Court can strike it down. If the Supreme Court finds that the law does not violate the First Amendment and upholds it, TikTok will have just a few days to find a US buyer for the app to meet the January 19 deadline. ByteDance said that It is ready to shut down the app in the US if the Court rules against them, with Francisco saying that TikTok will “go dark” on January 19.
The January 19 deadline is also the day before Trump is scheduled to be inaugurated. President-elect Trump recently signaled that he is no longer opposed to banning TikTok, a sharp reversal from his stance during his first term. Last week, Trump’s lawyers filed an amicus brief in the case. They did not take sides, but instead asked the court to delay the ban to give Trump time to come up with a “political resolution,” though the brief did not provide any concrete details on what that might look like. Either way, Trump won’t be able to do anything until he is inaugurated as president on the 20th, so there will be a service blackout period.
