Supreme Court Appears Poised to Support Federal Law That May Require TikTok to Shut Down or Sell by January 19

Unless its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, gave up ownership, the Supreme Court seemed set to uphold a law requiring TikTok to stop operating in the United States by January 19. The Justices appeared to be persuaded by arguments highlighting the national security threat posed by ByteDance’s Chinese ties during oral arguments in this crucial case, which pits free speech against national security, rather than worries about restricting speech for TikTok’s 170 million American users.

During the two-and-a-half-hour hearing, Chief Justice John Roberts quickly determined that the main issue was ByteDance’s ownership and its resulting duty to assist Chinese intelligence gathering. Noel Francisco, TikTok’s attorney, told the court that the platform would have to shut down on January 19th unless the law, which was passed in April with bipartisan support from Congress and signed by President Joe Biden, was changed. Francisco emphasized the possibility of a big change after President-elect Trump took office on January 20th, and he urgently asked for a short-term reprieve to keep TikTok operating. Trump, who has 14.7 million TikTok followers, also argued that the deadline should be postponed in order to allow for a “politically feasible solution.”

But it was unclear if judges would support such a postponement. The only person to support TikTok’s position and claim that the ban is unconstitutional was Justice Neil Gorsuch. To make matters more complicated, on January 19, President-elect Donald Trump submitted an amicus brief to the Supreme Court asking it to temporarily halt the law that prohibits TikTok’s U.S. operations while ByteDance divests.

However, ByteDance has continuously opposed selling TikTok. Nevertheless, a number of investors showed interest, including Trump’s former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and billionaire Frank McCourt. On Thursday, McCourt’s Project Liberty and unidentified partners submitted a bid to ByteDance for TikTok’s U.S. assets. The offer’s financial details were kept under wraps, with people like “Shark Tank” star Kevin O’Leary refusing to divulge information.

Unless it is sold to a pre-approved entity, this federal law would forbid internet service providers from hosting the app and app stores like Apple and Google from making it available for download. According to Justice Department documents, current users would continue to have access, but updates and new downloads would be prohibited, eventually making the app useless.

This federal law puts an end to a lengthy debate in Washington about TikTok, which was considered a national security threat because of its connections to China. U.S. authorities were concerned that the Chinese government might use coercion to obtain TikTok’s vast user data, including personal viewing preferences. There were also worries about possible Chinese manipulation of the app’s algorithm, which would have allowed for undetectable content changes.

Since launching a lawsuit against the government last year, TikTok has continuously denied claims that it is serving as a tool for Beijing. The business had conversations with the Biden administration in 2021 and 2022 about algorithmic manipulation and data privacy in the US. According to court documents, the administration essentially ended these negotiations in August 2022 after submitting a draft agreement. The Justice Department said the administration found the proposal “inadequate” and lacked confidence in ByteDance’s compliance, or the ability to identify non-compliance before it became problematic, and blamed this on TikTok’s ongoing ties to China.