President-elect Donald Trump called on Friday to block an impending U.S. ban on TikTok in a major lawsuit over national security concerns and free speech rights over the disputed Chinese-owned short video app. He has asked the Supreme Court, but many of his Republican allies argue the opposite.
Conservatives hold a 6-3 majority in a lawsuit testing First Amendment protections against the government as it prepares to decide the fate of the popular social media platform used by about half of Americans. For the courts, these disagreements raise the stakes. Speech summary.
“This is the most significant free speech case in at least a generation,” said Timothy Edgar, a former U.S. national security and intelligence official who has served in both Republican and Democratic presidential administrations. he said.
“Given that TikTok has 170 million monthly active users in the United States, the amount of free speech at stake is the largest in any Supreme Court case in U.S. history.” added Edgar, who teaches cybersecurity at Brown University. I joined TikTok to provide short-term support for this incident.
Concerns that China could use the app to access data or spy on Americans prompted Congress to overwhelmingly pass the bill with bipartisan support last year, with Democrats President Joe Biden signed it into law. TikTok's China-based parent company ByteDance will face a U.S. ban on January 19 unless it sells the platform.
The dispute was brought to the nation's highest judicial body just 10 days before Trump is scheduled to begin his second term as president, amid heightened trade tensions between the world's two largest economies.
The Justice Department defended the law, saying TikTok has access to vast amounts of data about U.S. users, from their location to private messages, and can secretly manipulate the content they view on the app, making it a threat to U.S. national security. He said it was a threat to security. .
TikTok and ByteDance disputed the national security claims, arguing instead that the law violates the First Amendment. If the law were allowed to continue, “Congress would be free to prohibit speech by Americans simply by identifying some risk that the speech would be influenced by a foreign entity,” the Supreme Court filing states. said.
President Trump said he has a “warm spot” for TikTok and vowed his campaign would “save” the platform that has generated “billions of views.”
“President Trump opposes banning TikTok in the United States at this time, and once he takes office, he wants to be able to resolve the issue at hand through political means,” John Sauer, a lawyer for President Trump, said in a filing. He asked the judge to put the law on hold. .
Mr. Sauer was nominated by President Trump to be Attorney General, the government's chief lawyer at the U.S. Supreme Court.
state attorney general
By contrast, many Republican lawmakers and officials have sided with the Biden administration in defending the bill before the court (the conservative majority includes three justices appointed by Trump in his first term). There is pressure to do so.
Republican attorneys general from 22 states disagreed with TikTok's arguments and filed a brief with the court asking the justices to comply with the law.
“Allowing TikTok to operate in the United States without severing ties with the Chinese Communist Party puts Americans at risk of the Chinese Communist Party accessing and exploiting their data,” said Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen. state officials, led by the secretary, said in a report. filing.
Montana tried to ban TikTok at the state level, but was blocked by a federal court.
Former Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell likened the TikTok lawsuit to a violent criminal seeking a “stay of execution.” The Republican chairman and top Democratic lawmaker of a U.S. House committee focused on China asked the judge to uphold measures to “protect Americans from foreign threats.”
On January 3, the Biden administration asked a judge to deny President Trump's request to put the ban on hold.
President Trump's support for TikTok is a reversal from 2020, when he tried to block the app and force it to be sold to U.S. companies during his first term as president. President Trump has since said a ban on TikTok would benefit the meta-owned platforms Facebook and Instagram, which he suspended after his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. I'm criticizing what you did.
TikTok, ByteDance, and some users who post content to the apps have appealed a Dec. 6 ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit that upheld the law.
If the Supreme Court upholds the law, “the risks to internet freedom both in the United States and around the world are high,” Edgar said.
Edgar added that “the U.S. government will be in a strong position if it chooses to regulate or ban digital platforms that involve substantial foreign investors.” Telegram, another widely used platform, “could be next,” Edgar added.
In a Dec. 13 letter, U.S. lawmakers told Apple and Alphabet Inc.'s Google, which operate the two major mobile app stores, that they must be ready to remove TikTok from those stores on Jan. 19. He said there is.
Users in the U.S. will likely be able to use TikTok after the deadline because it's already downloaded to their phones, but experts say the app will become unusable over time without software and security updates.
