US Supreme Court Agrees To Hear TikTok Appeal

The US Supreme Court has said it will accept the appeal by TikTok and Beijing-based parent company ByteDance to a federal law that could ban it from the country’s app stores on 19 January.

The court issued its statement a day after the companies filed their appeal and is to hear oral arguments on 10 January.

The companies had asked the Supreme Court to issue an emergency injunction putting the law on hold, but the court did not do so.

TikTok said even a one-month ban would lose it substantial revenues, take away one-third of its US user base, undermine its ability to attract advertisers, content creators and talented staff.

Free speech

“If Americans, duly informed of the alleged risks of ‘covert’ content manipulation, choose to continue viewing content on TikTok with their eyes wide open, the First Amendment entrusts them with making that choice, free from the government’s censorship,” TikTok said in its filing to the Supreme Court.

On 6 December the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in Washington rejected the companies’ effort to overturn the law on the grounds that it violates free speech.

“Here the government acted solely to protect that freedom from a foreign adversary nation and to limit that adversary’s ability to gather data on people in the United States,” the appeals court wrote in its decision.

The Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, passed in April, would ban TikTok from US app stores by 19 January unless ByteDance divests the app’s US operations.

National security claims

Lawmakers said they were not seeking to limit free speech but to cut off China’s access to US user data and its ability to influence the systems that control what users see on the app.

The EU is currently investigating TikTok over an alleged Russian election interference campaign that led to a previously unknown pro-Russian candidate taking the most votes in Romania’s first round of presidential elections in November.

The incident underscores concerns over how social media can be used to influence users’ opinions and actions.

President-elect Donald Trump, who tried unsuccessfully to ban TikTok in 2020 during his first term, has said he is not in favour of a ban as it would benefit Facebook parent Meta.