TikTok’s lawyers warn of wider consequences if the app is banned

TikTok’s legal team warned of wider consequences if the popular Chinese-owned app is banned in the US during their oral arguments at the Supreme Court. Reuters reports.

The app, owned by tech firm ByteDance, is currently set to be banned in the US on January 19 unless it is sold to another owner that is not controlled by a “foreign adversary”. This means it will become unavailable on platforms like Google and Apple’s app stores. The ban, issued over national security concerns, received bipartisan support when it was first introduced in April 2024 by the Biden administration.

However, President-elect Donald Trump has asked the Supreme Court to issue an order that would delay the law’s entry into force until after his inauguration on January 20. Noel Francisco, a lawyer representing TikTok and ByteDance, argued before the Supreme Court that the upholding law could allow the US government to censor content it doesn’t like in the future.

“AMC Cinemas used to be owned by a Chinese company. Under this theory, Congress could order AMC Cinemas to censor any movie Congress didn’t like or to promote any movie Congress wanted,” Francisco told the justices. Francisco went on to claim that “everyone manipulates the content,” noting that many people “think CNN, Fox News, The Wall Street Journal, New York Times are manipulating their content”.

Jeffrey Fisher, a lawyer representing TikTok content creators challenging the law, questioned why TikTok might be subject to tougher restrictions than other Chinese-owned firms operating in the US. “Do you want a Congress? [that is] Really worried about these very dramatic risks, leave out an e-commerce site like Temu that has 70 million Americans using it?” Fisher asked.

Fisher added that it’s “very curious” to single out TikTok and “not other companies with tens of millions of people who have had their data, you know, in the process of engaging with those websites and just as much, if not more, available for Chinese Control”.

Justice Elena Kagan, one of the eight justices presiding over the case, questioned whether the First Amendment was really relevant to the case. “The law only targets this foreign corporation, which has no First Amendment rights,” she said.

Not all legal arguments hinged on content manipulation or free speech grounds. US Attorney General Elizabeth Prelogar argued that the threat of China getting its hands on US citizens’ data is a serious enough reason to ban the app on its own, despite the threat of the Chinese government manipulating the content.

“I think it should be undisputed that, of course, our nation has a vested interest in keeping sensitive data out of the hands of our foreign adversary,” Prelogar said. “And it should also be undisputed that our foreign adversary has an existing capability through its laws and through the way these companies are integrated to get its hands on that data.”

About Will McCurdy

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