The US Supreme Court on Friday appeared to be leaning toward upholding a law that could see TikTok go dark later this month if the service isn’t sold to a buyer deemed fit by US officials.
Lawyers for the popular social media platform argued in front of the nation’s highest court that banning TikTok would infringe on the First Amendment rights of a US company and its 170 million active American users. But government lawyers countered that the case isn’t about free speech and instead has to do with the dangers posed by foreign adversaries, like China.
In his opening statement to the court, TikTok lawyer Noel Francisco said, “Whether you call [the law] a divesture or a ban, one thing is clear: It’s a burden on TikTok’s speech, so the First Amendment applies.”
But the justices seemed more on board with the government’s argument that the case isn’t about free speech, because the law doesn’t require TikTok to shut down or regulate what can be said on the platform. It just mandates that TikTok be sold.
US Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar told the justices that the law doesn’t regulate what’s said on the platform or the algorithm used by TikTok to feed American users content, but instead tries to “surgically remove” a foreign adversary.
Friday’s oral arguments, which lasted more than two hours, mark the beginning of the end of TikTok’s legal battle against the US government. It’s unclear when the Supreme Court will issue a ruling, but under the law, TikTok faces a Jan. 19 sale deadline. It’s also possible the court could issue a stay, putting the law temporarily on hold until President-elect Donald Trump takes office just a day later on Jan. 20.
Watch this: US vs. TikTok: What Happens Next
Read More: Here’s What You Need to Know if TikTok Does Get Banned in the US
During Francisco’s arguments, the justices asked many questions about the relationship between TikTok the US company and its China-based parent company ByteDance — specifically, what the risk of “covert content manipulation” is and what that exactly means. For the purposes of the hearing, the phrase referred to the potential for politically motivated actors to adjust TikTok’s algorithms to change the videos users see.
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have long worried that the Chinese government could use TikTok to collect massive amounts of data about the American population and also manipulate the beliefs of Americans for its own benefit through the kinds of content TikTok sends them.
In her arguments, Prelogar said nobody disputes that China has long sought to collect massive amounts of data about Americans, pointing to the country’s involvement in the breach of the Office of Personnel Management, which exposed the personal information of millions of federal workers. Though teenage TikTok users may seem unimportant now, they could grow up to be top military or government officials, she said. The more the Chinese government can find out about them now, the more at risk they could be years down the road.
“TikTok’s immense dataset would give the PRC a powerful tool for harassment, recruitment and espionage,” Prelogar said, referring to the People’s Republic of China.
One of the more notable moments from the hearing was when Prelogar argued that ByteDance would use the social platform to sow discord among Americans and distract them from Chinese manipulation, to which Chief Justice John Roberts replied, “ByteDance might be, through TikTok, trying to get Americans to argue with each other? If they do, I say they’re winning.”
What happens next with TikTok?
The next step is for the court to deliberate and then ultimately rule on the case.
If the Supreme Court decides the law does violate the First Amendment, the court could strike it down. If the court finds the law doesn’t conflict with the First Amendment and upholds it, TikTok would have only a few days to find a US buyer for the app to comply with the Jan. 19 deadline. ByteDance said it’s prepared to shut down the app in the US if the court rules against it, with Francisco saying TikTok would “go dark” on Jan. 19.
That deadline is also the day before Trump is set to be inaugurated. The president-elect recently signaled that he’s no longer opposed to a TikTok ban, a stark reversal from his stance during his first term. Last week, lawyers for Trump filed an amicus brief in the case. They didn’t take a side but instead asked the court to delay the ban to give Trump time to come up with a “political resolution,” though the brief didn’t offer any concrete details on what that would look like. Either way, Trump won’t be able to do anything until he’s inaugurated as president on the 20th, so there could be a period of service blackout.
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