Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch expressed concern Friday that divestment and banning laws targeting TikTok may “miss the mark.”
Gorsuch warned that if TikTok is no longer used in the United States, foreign adversaries could eventually turn to other applications to monitor American data.
Gorsuch agreed with the Supreme Court's decision to uphold the TikTok ban, saying, “We do not know whether this law will be successful in achieving its objectives. Determined foreign adversaries will continue to seek lost oversight.” They may simply try to replace one application with another.”
“As time passes and the threat evolves, less dramatic and more effective solutions may emerge. Even what happens next for TikTok is still unclear,” he added. .
A court on Friday unanimously upheld a law that would force TikTok's China-based parent company to exit the app, citing national security concerns. In a 9-0 decision, the justices ruled that the ban did not violate the First Amendment, as TikTok argued in court earlier this month.
Gorsuch said he agreed with the high court's decision not to rely on the government's concerns about the nature of TikTok's content as a justification for banning the app.
“One man's 'covert content manipulation' is another's 'editorial discretion,'” Gorsuch wrote. “Journalists, publishers, and speakers of all kinds routinely make opaque decisions about what stories to tell and how to tell them.”
The court was also right not to rely on TikTok and its lawyers, although it did not rely on confidential or classified evidence the government submitted to the court.
“There are clear constitutional concerns about efforts to introduce secret evidence into judicial proceedings,” Gorsuch wrote, later adding, “As the court has acknowledged, there is no need to consider secret government evidence here.” No,” he added.
The ban passed Congress with bipartisan support and was signed into law by President Biden in April. It gave TikTok a deadline of Sunday to either be forced to leave Chinese parent company ByteDance or face a ban in the United States.
Gorsuch wrote that he was persuaded that the law, which seeks to prevent foreign countries from collecting large amounts of personal data about millions of Americans, is rooted in “compelling interests.”
However, the Biden administration has indicated it does not intend to implement the law ahead of President-elect Trump's inauguration, leaving the decision to the incoming administration and leaving the app online for now.
President Trump, who is scheduled to take office the day after the ban goes into effect, said Friday that he would make the decision on TikTok's fate.
