OAN Staff Blake Wolf
2:04 PM – Thursday, January 16, 2025
The Supreme Court unanimously voted to uphold President Joe Biden's law banning TikTok from users in the United States after its Chinese parent company refused to sell the platform.
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Biden previously signed the controversial law last April, imposing “national security” sanctions on TikTok's Chinese parent company ByteDance over its “data collection practices and relations with foreign adversaries.” TikTok was given 270 days to sell due to concerns.
“There is no question that TikTok provides a unique and far-reaching source of expression, participation, and community for more than 170 million Americans,” the court said in its unanimous decision. I wrote it down.
“However, Congress has determined that the sale is necessary to address widely held national security concerns regarding TikTok's data collection practices and relationships with foreign adversaries,” the statement continued.
TikTok representatives argued that the law is “unconstitutional” and violates the First Amendment rights of the company itself as well as its 170 million U.S. users.
“We are confident and will continue to fight for your rights in court,” said TikTok CEO Shou Chew. “The facts and the Constitution are on our side, and we expect to prevail.”
Meanwhile, President-elect Donald Trump has previously voiced support for TikTok, saying he would “save TikTok” as the platform played a key role in attracting Republican support from young voters.
“The Supreme Court's decision was expected and everyone must respect it,” President Trump wrote in a post on Friday Truth Social after the ruling. “My decision regarding TikTok will be made in the not-too-distant future, but I need time to consider the situation. Stay tuned!”
Chu took to social media to thank President Trump for his support of the platform.
“We want to thank President Trump for his commitment to working with us to find a solution to keep TikTok available in the United States,” Chu said. “This is a strong position in support of the First Amendment and against arbitrary censorship.”
“We have a president who truly understands our platform, one who has used TikTok to express his thoughts and perspectives, connect with the world, and generate over 60 billion views of his content in the process. “I am grateful and pleased to have the support of the President,” he added.
The ban on TikTok is set to go into effect on Sunday, but the Biden administration has said it plans to leave enforcement of the ban to the incoming Trump administration.
“Given the sheer facts of timing, the current administration recognizes that action to implement this law should be left to the next administration, which takes office on Monday,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement. “There is,” he said.
It is currently unclear whether TikTok will continue to allow U.S. users access to the app when the ban goes into effect on Sunday following Jean-Pierre's comments, but TikTok reportedly They had previously considered going “darker” with the law taking effect.
With the ban looming, TikTok users in the U.S. are moving to an alternative social media app called Xiaohongshu, or RedNote, which is also Chinese-owned.
The app, which appeared in Apple's app store on Tuesday, has attracted about 3 million users in the U.S., according to the company. forbes.
“This appears to be the type of app that the statue applies to and could face the same restrictions as TikTok if not sold,” said an anonymous US official. CBS News.
American TikTok users were previously unable to connect with Chinese nationals because Chinese nationals did not have access to the international format of the TikTok app, but the RedNote app is connecting Americans with more Chinese users than ever before. There is.
The growing number of U.S. users downloading RedNote is raising the same, if not greater, concerns among cybersecurity officials that they had about Chinese-owned TikTok.
“RedNote was never targeted outside the Chinese market. All data sharing and all servers on which data is shared are located in China,” said Adrianus Warmerhoven, cybersecurity expert at Nord VPN. Masu.
“This means that they are exempt from all these data protections and are outside of the US government's view,” Wormerhoven continued.
“Its terms and conditions are written in Mandarin, making it unclear to non-Chinese speaking users what data is collected and how it will be used,” he added. “I’m convinced that millions of people moving away aren’t using Google Translate to read books. [the terms and conditions] So they don't know what they're agreeing to. ”
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