The Supreme Court will hear arguments Friday on the fate of TikTok, the wildly popular video app that Congress says poses a potential threat to national security.
If judges don’t intervene before the Jan. 19 deadline set by a federal law, the app must be sold or shut down.
The law, passed in April with broad bipartisan support, said emergency measures were needed because TikTok’s corporate parent, ByteDance, was effectively controlled by the Chinese government, which could use the app to collect sensitive information about Americans and to spread covert disinformation.
Saying the law violates its First Amendment rights and those of its 170 million American users, TikTok has asked the court to strike down the law.
The court has put the case on an extremely fast track and is likely to rule by the end of next week. His decision will be among the most important of the digital age, as TikTok has become a cultural phenomenon powered by a sophisticated algorithm that delivers entertainment and information that touches almost every aspect of American life.
“Americans use TikTok to communicate about all kinds of topics — from culture and sports, to politics and law, to commerce and humor,” lawyers for the app told the judges. “For example, people of different faiths use TikTok to discuss their beliefs with others. Recovered alcoholics and individuals with rare diseases form support groups. Many also use the platform to share videos about products, businesses and travel.”
The Supreme Court has repeatedly taken up cases on the application of free speech principles to the giant technology platforms, although it has not issued final decisions. It has also struggled with the application of the First Amendment to foreign speakers, ruling that they are generally without constitutional protection, at least for speech delivered abroad.
A three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in early December rejected a challenge to the law, ruling that it was justified by national security concerns.
“The First Amendment exists to protect free speech in the United States,” wrote Justice Douglas H. Ginsburg for the majority, joined by Justice Neomi Rao. “Here the government acted only to protect that freedom from an adversary foreign nation and to limit that adversary’s ability to collect data on people in the United States.”
In a concurring opinion, Chief Justice Sri Srinivasan acknowledged that under the law’s ban, “many Americans may lose access to a venue for expression, a resource of community and even a means of income.”
“Congress deemed it necessary to assume this risk,” he wrote, “given the grave national security threats it perceived. And because the record reflects that Congress’s decision was considered, consistent with longstanding practice regulatory and without an institutional purpose to suppress particular messages or ideas, we are unable to set it aside.
ByteDance has said that more than half of the company is owned by global institutional investors and that the Chinese government has no direct or indirect ownership stake in TikTok or ByteDance.
The government brief acknowledged that ByteDance is incorporated in the Cayman Islands, but said that its headquarters are in Beijing and that it operates primarily from offices in China.
The statutory deadline falls one day before the inauguration of President-elect Donald J. Trump. In an unusual brief last month, nominally supporting neither side, he asked the justices to temporarily block the law so he could deal with the case once in office.
“President Trump opposes the ban on TikTok in the United States at this time,” the summary said, “and seeks the ability to resolve the issues at hand through political means once he takes office.”
