The United States Supreme Court today unanimously upheld a federal law banning TikTok in the United States unless the social network's Chinese founder, ByteDance, sells it to someone outside of China.
TikTok has 170 million users in the US. However, the US Congress, with votes from both major political parties in the country - Democrats and Republicans - passed the contested law for national security reasons and due to fears that the Chinese government, based on domestic regulations, would request data on American users from ByteDance and possibly manipulate them and the algorithms that determine what users see online.
The law is set to take effect on January 19, two days from now, and a sale doesn't seem likely in the near future. ByteDance's lawyers argue that the sale of TikTok violates the First Amendment to the US Constitution, which guarantees freedom of speech, but that argument has not been accepted by the Supreme Court, nor by lower courts. The key argument was that the service provider is not from the US but from a completely different country - China.
Liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor and conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch had some reservations about the nine-judge panel's decision, which they expressed in separate opinions, but they agreed in principle with their colleagues.
Experts say that TikTok, if the ban goes into effect, will not disappear from the phones of American users, but it will not be enabled for new users, while old ones will not be able to use the updates.
Ultimately, the application will become unusable as a result, the US Department of Justice said in court documents.
The Supreme Court's decision comes amid unusual political agitation by US President-elect Donald Trump, who takes office on January 20, and wants to negotiate a different solution for TikTok. The administration of outgoing US President Joseph Biden has signaled that it will not start implementing the law on January 19, the last day of Biden's presidency.
Trump, who wanted to ban TikTok in his first term and is now aware of its popularity and the fact that the network is used by 14,7 million of his supporters, found himself on the opposite side of senators from his Republican Party who are criticizing ByteDance for not seeking a buyer for the network earlier.
It is unclear what options Trump has regarding TikTok after he is sworn in as president.
The law allows a 90-day pause in implementation if progress is made towards sales before it takes effect.
ByteDance claims it will not sell TikTok.
The conflicts over the ban on TikTok in the US reflect the geopolitical competition between the US and China.
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