U.S. Supreme Court Upholds TikTok Ban

The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld a federal law banning TikTok unless its Chinese parent company, ByteDance Ltd., begins a sale by Sunday, January 19. Associated Press Reports. The court unanimously approved the law, ruling that the clear risk to national security outweighed concerns about First Amendment rights. While the ban is not expected to remove the app from phones, experts say it is likely that new downloads and updates will be blocked, eventually making it unusable. The restrictions could be paused if ByteDance finds a buyer by Sunday, but such a sale does not appear imminent, according to the AP.

The court made its decision despite opposition from party leaders who were concerned about alienating its 170 million American users. President Joe Biden signed the legislation into law after Congress passed it overwhelmingly, but said he would not implement it on Sunday; President-elect Donald J. Trump, who has nearly 15 million followers on the app, said he wants to solve the problem.

The upcoming ban was taken to the Supreme Court after TikTok File a lawsuit against The US government, in 2024, calling it “an extraordinary interference with freedom of expression rights.” The court responded, in its unsigned opinion, that “Congress has determined that divestment is necessary to address well-supported national security concerns regarding TikTok’s data collection practices and relationship with a foreign adversary.”