On Friday, the United States Supreme Court ruled against the social media platform TikTok. The justices rejected TikTok’s appeal, and a law passed by the U.S. government is set to take effect this weekend on January 19. At that time, the TikTok application will be banned across the entire United States.
In 2024, the U.S. Congress passed the “Protecting Americans from Foreign-Controlled Apps Act,” which required TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to separate from TikTok by January 19, 2025, or face a ban in the United States. President Biden subsequently signed the bill into law.
Following TikTok’s loss in the appeals court, on December 9, 2024, they filed an emergency motion requesting a suspension of the law’s enforcement pending review by the Supreme Court.
On January 10, the Supreme Court held its first oral arguments regarding the TikTok lawsuit in Washington D.C. A majority of the justices indicated that they believed national security concerns should take precedence over the freedom of speech rights of the company and a group of content creators.
During last Friday’s arguments, several justices emphasized that the focus of the government’s law was not to restrict speech, but rather aimed at ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company. Congress views ByteDance as having dangerous close ties to the Chinese Communist Party government.