TikTok’s US Supreme Court Trial: Here’s What Was Said Today
TikTok’s lawyers argued to the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday: “Whether you call (the law) a divestment or an injunction, one thing is clear: It burdens TikTok’s speech and therefore the First Amendment applies.”
Today’s Supreme Court hearing marks the beginning of the end TikTok’s long legal battle Against the U.S. government. The hearing began at 10 a.m. ET and lasted more than two hours. During that time, TikTok’s attorneys and U.S. Deputy Attorney General Elizabeth Prelogar made preliminary arguments and answered questions from the judge.
Similar to previous court proceedings, the U.S. government argued that the popular video app could pose a national security threat and be used by the Chinese government to spy on Americans. TikTok has vehemently denied the accusations, saying the 2024 law – which passed both chambers of Congress by wide margins and was signed into law by President Joe Biden – violates the First Amendment rights of TikTok’s 170 million active U.S. users. The hearing comes just nine days before a looming January 19 divestment or injunction deadline.
Look at this: America and TikTok: What happens next
TikTok’s lawyer, Noel Francisco, opened the hearing. The justices raised a number of questions about the relationship between TikTok US and its Chinese parent company, specifically what the risks of “covert content manipulation” are and what exactly it means. For the purposes of the hearing, the phrase refers to the possibility that politically motivated actors could tweak TikTok’s algorithm to alter the videos users see.
A sticking point in the hearings has been secret evidence submitted by the U.S. government, an issue that has not been resolved in lower court proceedings. Although the justices questioned Francisco, one justice’s question confirmed that in the evidence, the U.S. government “acknowledged that there is no evidence that TikTok engages in covert content manipulation in the country,” but both parties responded to whether ByteDance ” “There are differences. China requires censorship of content outside China. “
Prelogar concluded the hearing, saying in her opening remarks that “TikTok’s massive data set will provide the People’s Republic of China with a powerful tool for harassment, recruitment, and espionage.” She worries that not only is users’ data at risk, they Others in their contacts were also at risk, and expressed concern that the data of teenagers and young children was particularly at risk.
In one of the most striking moments of the hearing, Chief Justice Roberts responded to Prelog’s argument that ByteDance would use social platforms to sow discord among Americans and distract from Chinese manipulation. Said: “Might ByteDance try to get Americans to argue with each other through TikTok? If they do, I say they win.”
What’s next for TikTok?
Next, the court will review the case and make a final ruling. We don’t know when it will issue a decision.
If the Supreme Court rules that the law does violate the First Amendment, the court can overturn the law. If the Supreme Court finds that the law does not violate the First Amendment and upholds the ruling, TikTok would have just days to find a U.S. buyer for the app to meet a Jan. 19 deadline. ByteDance said it was ready to shut down the app in the U.S. if the court ruled against them, and Francisco said TikTok would “shut down” on January 19.
The Jan. 19 deadline is also the day before Trump’s inauguration. President-elect Trump recently said he no longer opposes a TikTok ban, a sharp departure from his stance during his first term. Last week, Trump’s lawyers Amicus briefs filed in this case. Rather than taking sides, they asked the court to delay the injunction to give Trump time to come up with a “political solution,” although the brief did not provide any specific details. Regardless, Trump won’t be able to do anything until he takes office on the 20th, so there may be a period of service outage.
