The United States Supreme Court is set to hear oral arguments on January 10 in TikTok’s challenge to a federal law that has the potential to ban the popular social media app nationwide by the end of next month unless certain conditions are met.
Although TikTok and it’s Chinese-owned parent company ByteDance asked the Court for an injunction preventing the law from taking effect, the Justices instead opted to treat their application as a petition for a writ of certiorari, which they granted.
The companies’ case was consolidated with that of a group of TikTok content creators — both of whom are alleging that the law is in violation of the First Amendment — and the cases will be allotted an aggregate of two hours for oral arguments.
Absent a block from the Court, the law requiring ByteDance’s complete divestment from the app in order to avoid a ban would go into effect as scheduled on January 19.
Click Here to Read the Supreme Court’s Full Order
In their application to the Supreme Court, the companies suggest that the law, if allowed to stand, “will shutter one of America’s most popular speech platforms the day before a presidential inauguration.”
“This, in turn, will silence the speech of Applicants and the many Americans who use the platform to communicate about politics, commerce, arts, and other matters of public concern,” they argue. “Applicants—as well as countless small businesses who rely on the platform— also will suffer substantial and unrecoverable monetary and competitive harms.”
[RELATED: TikTok Asks SCOTUS to Block Law with Potential to Ban the App in January]
They go on to argue that should the ban go into effect as scheduled, it would be “destroying the business and closing a vital channel of communication used by more than 170 million Americans every month.”
“This will cause TikTok’s American base of 170 million monthly users and creators to lose access to one of the country’s most popular speech platforms, destroy TikTok’s ability to attract advertisers, and cripple TikTok’s ability to recruit and retain talent,” the companies argued. Even if the ban later lifts, a temporary shutdown will irreparably harm Applicants in several ways.”
Click Here to Read the Full SCOTUS Filing
This application to the Supreme Court came following the companies’ request for an injunction from the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia after a three judge panel voted to uphold the law the week prior, rejecting arguments that the measure is in violation of the First Amendment.
[RELATED: TikTok Asks Court to Temporarily Block Enforcement of Potential Ban Pending SCOTUS Review]
Approved by a bipartisan vote of 79-18 in the Senate and signed into law by President Joe Biden (D), the law at the center of this challenge would ban TikTok from all US app stores unless ByteDance sells the social media site within about nine months of the bill’s passage.
Division H of HR 815 — the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act — originated as a standalone House bill in March where it was quickly approved by a strong bipartisan majority in a vote of 352-65.
The measure stalled in the Senate, however, before being added into the omnibus foreign aid package.
[RELATED: Potential TikTok Ban Passes U.S. House of Reps with Strong Bipartisan Support]
Although this law is frequently referred to as a ban on TikTok, lawmakers have pushed back on this interpretation, suggesting that it primarily functions as a divestment requirement.
TikTok has been subject to heightened scrutiny in recent months over data privacy concerns, as Chinese law requires the country’s businesses to share information with the government upon request.
Despite this law, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew has denied ever having shared U.S. users’ data with the Chinese government, stating before Congress that the company has begun taking steps to ensure that American data continues to remain shielded from Chinese officials, citing what has become known as “Project Texas.”
The $1.5 billion plan primarily entails transferring the data of US TikTok users to the cloud infrastructure of Oracle — a cloud company based in Austin, Texas — as well as restructuring their US operations to provide a greater level of transparency and oversight in an effort to increase American confidence in the platform’s security.
Regardless of this, both the federal government and a number of states had previously taken action to ban the download or use of TikTok on government-owned devices due to security concerns.
As of January 2023, 33 states — including Maine — had put in place some form of a ban on TikTok for government-issued devices.
