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What's New
The Supreme Court has agreed to hear arguments in TikTok's challenge to a law set to go into effect on the last day of Joe Biden's presidency, which would ban the popular app if its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, does not sell it.
ByteDance has indicated it will not sell TikTok.
The justices granted certiorari Wednesday to take up the petition filed by ByteDance, which owns TikTok. The court will hear arguments on January 10 about whether the federal law that seeks to ban the app on national security grounds violates free speech laws.
Why It Matters
TikTok filed the challenge on Monday, arguing that the law, enacted with bipartisan support in April, impermissibly restricts speech in violation of the First Amendment. Congress passed the Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act earlier this year over concerns that the app's Chinese ownership presented a national security risk.
The popular social media platform has more than 170 million users in the United States.
What To Know
A federal appeals court unanimously upheld the ban in a ruling earlier this month, finding that the government does have a national security interest in regulating TikTok in the U.S.
If the Supreme Court does not issue a decision before the deadline, the ban will go into effect a day before President-elect Donald Trump takes office—timing that TikTok's attorneys have pointed out in their filings.
Lawyers for the app said the ban "will shutter one of America's most popular speech platforms the day before a presidential inauguration" and "in turn, will silence the speech of Applicants and the many Americans who use the platform to communicate about politics, commerce, arts, and other matters of public concern."
TikTok CEO Shou Chew met with Trump at the president-elect's Mar-a-Lago home on Monday afternoon, just hours after the company asked the Supreme Court to wade into the matter.
Trump has suggested he could take a different approach to the app but has not indicated what that might look like. Still, TikTok picked up on that tone and urged the Supreme Court to block the ban to give "the incoming administration time to determine its position."
What People Are Saying
Trump, at a Monday press conference: "I have a warm spot in my heart for TikTok because I won youth by 34 points, and there are those that say that TikTok has something to do with it."
TikTok, in a December 6 statement: "The Supreme Court has an established historical record of protecting Americans' right to free speech, and we expect they will do just that on this important constitutional issue. Unfortunately, the TikTok ban was conceived and pushed through based upon inaccurate, flawed and hypothetical information, resulting in outright censorship of the American people. The TikTok ban, unless stopped, will silence the voices of over 170 million Americans here in the US and around the world on January 19th, 2025."
Florida Senator Marco Rubio, who led the charge against TikTok and is Trump's pick for secretary of state, said in an April 24 statement: "TikTok extended the Chinese Communist Party's power and influence into our own nation, right under our noses. I have been raising concerns about TikTok since 2019, so this new law forcing ByteDance to divest from TikTok is a huge step toward confronting Beijing's malign influence. It's official: Communist China is on the clock."
What's Next
It's unclear how quickly the high court might issue a decision. There are only nine days between oral arguments and the ban's effective date.
Update 12/18/24, 12:26 p.m. ET: This article was updated with additional information.
About the writer
Katherine Fung is a Newsweek senior reporter based in New York City. She has covered U.S. politics and culture extensively. ... Read more