The TikTok ban is once again in doubt, despite an appeals court rejecting the company’s argument that it was protected by the First Amendment.
Parent company ByteDance has applied to the US Supreme Court for an emergency injunction against the law requiring it to sell TikTok to a US company or be banned …
A quick recap on the TikTok ban saga
The saga began back in 2020, when then-president Trump announced that he would ban TikTok from the US unless the app was sold to a US company by September of that year. The deadline was twice extended before it was quietly allowed to lapse with no action.
However, Congress picked things up earlier this year, with a new law intended to either ban TikTok from the US, or to force the sale of the app to an American-owned company. Bytedance took the US government to court, arguing that the threatened ban would be unconstitutional, interfering with a First Amendment right to free speech.
That case was heard earlier this month, with the judges unanimously rejecting the constitutional argument.
TikTok asks Supreme Court for emergency injunction
The court ruling meant ByteDance’s only hope was an appeal to the US Supreme Court. However, the ban would come into effect next month, ahead of any possible hearing.
To get around this, the company has now asked the court for an emergency injunction to prevent the ban taking effect before its final appeal could be heard. The Guardian summarised the arguments made in the filing.
In their filing to the supreme court, TikTok and ByteDance said: “If Americans, duly informed of the alleged risks of ‘covert’ content manipulation, choose to continue viewing content on TikTok with their eyes wide open, the first amendment entrusts them with making that choice, free from the government’s censorship.”
“And if the DC circuit’s contrary holding stands, then Congress will have free rein to ban any American from speaking simply by identifying some risk that the speech is influenced by a foreign entity,” they added.
The companies said that being shuttered for even one month would cause TikTok to lose about a third of its US users and undermine its ability to attract advertisers and recruit content creators and employee talent.
Calling itself one of the “most important speech platforms” used in the United States, TikTok has said that there is no imminent threat to US national security and that delaying enforcement of the law would allow the supreme court to consider the legality of the ban, and the incoming administration of Donald Trump to evaluate the law as well.
Trump reportedly met TikTok CEO
The ban was first threatened by then-president Trump, who then failed to enact it, and subsequently made a complete 180 by promising to save it. NBC News yesterday reported that Trump would be meeting the company’s chief exec the same day.
President-elect Donald Trump is meeting with TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew on Monday ahead of a possible U.S. ban on the video app, a source familiar with the plans told NBC News.
Trump expressed having “a warm spot” for TikTok at a news conference earlier in the day, saying “we’ll take a look” at the app and a possible ban.
Trump partly credited TikTok for his election win, though his specific claim wasn’t in fact true.
At his news conference Monday, Trump did not mention the meeting with Chew but said he thought his electoral victory was in part due to his use of TikTok. “I won youth by 34 points. And there are those that say that TikTok has something to do with that,” he said. Trump lost voters ages 18-29, according to a national exit poll.
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