Legal/Law/Criminal Justice and Reform

Supreme Court Agrees To Hear TikTok’s Challenge To Law That Could Ban Platform

Flickr/Tony Webster

The Supreme Court agreed Wednesday to hear TikTok’s challenge to a law that could ban the platform in the United States.

The justices are set to hear oral arguments on January 10, according to the order.

The Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act forces TikTok’s Chinese owner ByteDance to divest from the platform or face a ban on Jan. 19.

“The Act will shutter one of America’s most popular speech platforms the day before a presidential inauguration,” the platform argued in its emergency application Monday. “This, in turn, will silence the speech of Applicants and the many Americans who use the platform to communicate about politics, commerce, arts, and other matters of public concern.”

In early December, a federal appeals court upheld the law and characterized Chinese ownership of the app as a national security risk.

“Using its hybrid commercial strategy, the [People’s Republic of China (PRC)] has positioned itself to manipulate public discourse on TikTok in order to serve its own ends,” the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit held. “The PRC’s ability to do so is at odds with free speech fundamentals. Indeed, the First Amendment precludes a domestic government from exercising comparable control over a social media company in the United States.”

The Supreme Court deferred action on TikTok’s request to block the law until after oral arguments.

This is a breaking news story and will be updated.