The US supreme court said on Wednesday that it would hear TikTok’s challenge to a law that could make the company’s popular video app disappear from the US.
In its order on Wednesday, the supreme court said it would set aside two hours for oral arguments on 10 January to consider TikTok’s lawsuit against the justice department and the attorney general, Merrick Garland.
TikTok issued a statement in response to the court agreeing to take up its case: “We’re pleased with today’s supreme court order. We believe the court will find the TikTok ban unconstitutional so the over 170 million Americans on our platform can continue to exercise their free speech rights.”
The law that will either ban TikTok or force the sale of the app is set to go into effect on 19 January. A federal appeals court in Washington DC rejected ByteDance’s argument earlier this month that the law violated the free speech provision of the US constitution’s first amendment. The ruling allows the law, passed in April, to remain in place.
The justice department argued that it considered TikTok “a national-security threat of immense depth and scale” because of the vast amount of data it has compiled and stored on its users in the US. Members of Congress made similar arguments when debating the bill. They contended that, because ByteDance is headquartered in Beijing, national security laws there would allow the Chinese Communist party to manipulate US citizens with propaganda delivered via the app. So far, the US has produced no evidence that such manipulation has taken place, though US lawmakers have said the threat TikTok poses is severe enough to bar the app from the country.
ByteDance has said divestment is “not possible technologically, commercially or legally”. The company has partnered with US tech giant Oracle to store users’ data in Singapore and the US. Though owned by a Chinese parent company, TikTok is not available in China; users there download a nearly identical app called Douyin.
There is evidence that a hard approach by the US to TikTok during Joe Biden’s administration will thaw once the president-elect, Donald Trump, assumes office next month, a day after the TikTok ban was set to take effect.
“[I have] a warm spot in my heart for TikTok,” Trump said on Monday at a press conference in Florida, after meeting TikTok chief executive Shou Zi Chew at his Mar-a-Lago mansion in Palm Beach, Reuters reported.
TikTok and ByteDance had asked the supreme court to issue a decision on its request by 6 January to allow, in the event it is rejected, for the “complex task of shutting down TikTok” in the US.
Legal analysts say the 10 January hearing date gives lawyers for TikTok and the justice department little preparation time.
“It is valuable that the justices agreed to hear the appeal on an expedited basis, because of the looming deadline with the potential to cut off 170m US users, [but] counsel for TikTok and the US will have to quickly assemble written briefs and rapidly prepare for oral arguments,” said Carl Tobias, Williams professor of law at the University of Richmond and a veteran supreme court analyst.
“The DC circuit panel ruled that US national security interests outweighed first amendment arguments. However, the justices may take a fresh look at the critically important issues,” he added.
Tobias said Joe Biden “could relieve some time pressure by granting a 90-day extension which the law expressly provides”, but such a decision could be complicated by Trump’s flip-flopping over TikTok.