Supreme Court Justices Express Skepticism Over TikTok Challenge
Supreme Court justices indicated skepticism on Friday towards a challenge by TikTok and its Chinese parent company ByteDance to a law that would force a sale or ban the widely used short-video app in the United States.
The law, passed by Congress with strong bipartisan support, would require TikTok to divest its U.S. operations by January 19, or face a ban. TikTok and ByteDance, as well as some users who post content on the app, have challenged the law, arguing that it violates the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment protection against government abridgment of free speech.
During the oral arguments, some justices seemed to acknowledge the national security concerns of Congress, which were centered around the possibility of the Chinese government using TikTok to spy on Americans and carry out covert influence operations. However, others voiced concerns about the law’s implications for free speech.
Conservative Justice Samuel Alito floated the possibility of the court issuing an administrative stay that would put the law on hold temporarily while the justices decide how to proceed. Conservative Chief Justice John Roberts pressed Noel Francisco, a lawyer for TikTok and ByteDance, on TikTok’s Chinese ownership and the concerns of Congress.
Liberal Justice Elena Kagan argued that the law is only targeted at a foreign corporation, which does not have First Amendment rights. However, she also raised the hypothetical of whether Congress could have forced the American Communist Party to divorce itself from the Soviet Union in the 1950s.
U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, arguing for the Biden administration, said that Chinese government control of TikTok poses a grave threat to American national security, and that the platform’s powerful algorithm and vast user data set make it a powerful tool for harassment, recruitment, and espionage.
The justices also weighed in on the implications of the law for free speech, with some arguing that the law does not impose a direct burden on TikTok’s speech, while others saw it as a restriction on the platform’s ability to operate.
The case comes at a time of rising trade tensions between the world’s two biggest economies, and has implications for the future of social media and free speech in the United States.
