US Supreme Court upholds ban on TikTok with Chinese ownership
Since 2017, TikTok has gained 170 million users in US. In 2023, US TikToK users uploaded 5.5 billion videos, which were viewed 13 trillion times
Washington: American platforms cannot distribute, maintain and update TikTok as long as it remains under Chinese ownership, the US Supreme Court unanimously ruled on Friday. The decision upholds a law, passed by the Congress on national security grounds, that effectively bans TikTok in the US from January 20.
Responding to the verdict, President-elect Donald J Trump, who has opposed the ban and had submitted an unprecedented petition to the court to leave the decision to him, said, “The Supreme Court decision was expected, and everyone must respect it. My decision on TikTok will be made in the not too distant future, but I must have time to review the situation. Stay tuned!”
The core of the case revolved around validity of the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, and whether it violated the First Amendment, the right to free speech. The law made it unlawful for companies in the US to “provide services to distribute, maintain, or update the social media platform TikTok” unless US operation of the platform was “severed from Chinese control”.
“There is no doubt that, for more than 170 million Americans, TikTok offers a distinctive and expansive outlet for expression, means of engagement, and source of community. But Congress has determined that divestiture is necessary to address its well supported national security concerns regarding TikTok’s ties data collection practices and relationship with a foreign adversary. For the foregoing reasons, we conclude that the challenged provisions do not violate petitioners’ First Amendment rights,” the court said in its decision.
Rationale of the judgment
TikTok is owned by ByteDance, which owns the platform’s proprietary algorithms that is maintained and developed in China. Chinese law mandates ByteDance to “assist or cooperate” with the Chinese government’s “intelligence work” and ensures that the Chinese government has the “power to access and control private data”.
As a part of its decision, the court outlined the various steps that the US government had taken in recent years to address national security concerns emanating from
TikTok’s ties with China, including Trump’s executive order banning it in August 2020, the legislation, and subsequent legal challenges by TikTok.
The justices examined the First Amendment argument carefully and said that a law targeting a foreign adversary’s control over a communication platform was different from the kind of regulations of non-expressive activity that the court had subjected to free speech scrutiny. “Those differences — the Act’s focus on a foreign government, the Congressional determined adversary relationship between that foreign government and the United States, and the causal steps between the regulations and the alleged burden on free speech — may impact whether First Amendment scrutiny applies”.
The court was sceptical that free speech provisions applied to a law requiring divestiture “for the purpose of preventing a foreign adversary from accessing the sensitive data of 170 million US TikTok users”. TikToK, it said, had special characteristics given a foreign adversary’s ability to leverage its control over the platform to access data that justified differential treatment. This qualified as an important government interest. The relevant point was not that China had or had not done so already, but that it could do so, the court indicated.
Political responses
The White House said that while President Joe Biden believed that TikTok should be allowed only under US ownership, it is leaving the decision to the next administration.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said, “President Biden’s position on TikTok has been clear for months, including since Congress sent a bill in overwhelming, bipartisan fashion to the President’s desk: TikTok should remain available to Americans, but simply under American ownership or other ownership that addresses the national security concerns identified by Congress in developing this law. Given the sheer fact of timing, this Administration recognises that actions to implement the law simply must fall to the next Administration, which takes office on Monday.”
Soon after the decision, Trump told a CNN anchor, “It ultimately goes up to me, so you are going to see what I’m going to do. Congress has given me the decision, so I’ll be making the decision.”
What was at stake
The scale of the platform is staggering. Since 2017, TikTok has gained 170 million users in US. In 2023, US TikToK users uploaded 5.5 billion videos, which were viewed 13 trillion times.
The issue encompassed every sphere of American State. The judicial decision comes after both legislative chambers of the US Congress banned TikTok, and after President Biden, as the head of the executive, signed the law. There was remarkable bipartisan support and sanction across institutions to proceed with the move.
Yet, it speaks to both the company’s extraordinary leverage through donors on Trump, Trump’s belief that it helped him in the elections, and TikTok’s cache with younger Americans that the President-elect opposed a ban on TikTok that his own party had pushed and has invited TikTok CEO to share the stage with other American tech leaders to his inauguration on the very day that the ban on the app is to come into force.
Recommended Topics