The Supreme Court has put in its two cents regarding TikTok‘s future in the United States as it heard arguments on the constitutionality of a law that would have potentially banned the social app unless it is to be divested from the Chinese parent company, ByteDance.
On Wednesday, the court announced it was going to consolidate two related cases concerning the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act. It is going to advance oral arguments on January 10, 2025- just days before the deadline established by the law for the sale of TikTok on January 19 or face a national ban.
The law, passed last April 2024, keeps TikTok off app stores and forces web-hosting providers to cut ties with the platform. It was enacted after classified briefings of Congress alleging that TikTok poses a national security threat. Critics argue that an app like TikTok may also be used by the government of China to access users’ data from Americans, or even manipulate public opinions.
TikTok has answered the above claims by denying that such occurrences exist, maintaining that the operations of the firm are beyond Beijing. According to the company, blocking the app would violate the First Amendment rights of its 170 million U.S. users and be unprecedented suppression of free speech.
A federal appeals court earlier this month upheld the law, ruling that it prevents foreign influence on U.S. communications, but legal scholars and advocacy groups such as the ACLU and the Electronic Frontier Foundation argue that the very ban itself undermines democratic principles.
This ruling by the high court has intensified public discourse regarding the examination of the law. Former President Donald Trump initiated attempts to prohibit TikTok during his initial term and has recently conveyed ambivalent opinions about its future, suggesting that there may be alternative solutions to prevent corporate monopolies from being completely dismantled.
This will be the landmark effect of this case by the Supreme Court, balancing the need to protect national security concerns against free speech rights in the digital age. On both sides, there will be preparation of the argument before December 27 for briefs.
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