The Supreme Court has sided with the Biden administration on a law that could ban TikTok in the coming days. By unanimous decision the court supported the lawwriting in an unsigned opinion that TikTok's “scale and susceptibility to scrutiny by foreign adversaries, as well as the massive volumes of sensitive data the platform collects, justify differential treatment to address the government's national security concerns.”
The decision marks the end of TikTok's numerous legal battles over the law. passed last springTo do this, ByteDance demands that TikTok be sold, otherwise it faces a ban in the United States. It comes amid growing tensions between the US and China and just days after the Biden administration moved into limit exports GPUs used in artificial intelligence applications.
However, TikTok's future remains uncertain. White House officials said Thursday that the Biden administration will not enforce ban on President Joe Biden's final day in office. New President Donald Trump, who will be sworn in the day after the ban is set to take effect, proposed he wants to “save” the application. This has led to some speculation that he may instruct the Justice Department not to enforce the law or find some other arrangement this will allow the application to remain available.
“The Supreme Court's decision was expected and everyone should respect it,” Trump wrote on his blog. fast on Pravda Sots. “My decision on TikTok will be made in the not too distant future, but I should have time to analyze the situation.” He also said that he discussed TikTok with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday, but did not provide details. Earlier this week, Washington Post reported that Trump is considering executive order this would give TikTok an additional “60 or 90 days” to comply with the law. TikTok CEO Shu Chu is expected to attend Trump's inauguration, where he will sit next to Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk.
In a short statement he shared on TikTokChu thanked Trump but did not say whether the app would go dark this weekend when the ban takes effect. “I want to thank President Trump for his willingness to work with us to find a solution that will allow TikTok to remain available in the United States,” he said. “This is a strong position in favor of the First Amendment and against arbitrary censorship.” Representatives from TikTok, Google, Apple and Oracle (who owners TikTok US data) did not respond to questions about their plans to comply with the law.
In a concurring opinion, Justice Neil Gorsuch acknowledged the uncertainty surrounding TikTok's future. “Even what might happen next with TikTok remains unclear,” he wrote. “All I can say is that at this time and with these restrictions, the problem appears to be real and the response to it is not unconstitutional.”
Free speech groups condemned the law and the Supreme Court's decision to uphold it. “The Supreme Court's decision is incredibly disappointing because it allows the government to shut down the entire platform and free speech rights of so many people based on fearmongering and speculation,” Patrick Toomey, deputy director of the ACLU's National Security Project, said in a statement. . “By refusing to block this ban, the Supreme Court is giving the executive branch unprecedented power to silence speech it doesn’t like, increasing the danger that radical calls for ‘national security’ will trump our constitutional rights.”
The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights advocacy group, said in statement that “banning or forcing the sale of one social media app will do little to nothing to protect Americans' data privacy—only comprehensive consumer privacy legislation can achieve that goal.”
TikTok users also spoke out against the ban. Before the law was passed legions of fans called their congressional offices and urged them not to support the bill. The move may have had unintended consequences, as some members of Congress accused TikTok, which encouraged users to make calls, of “interfering with the legislative process.” Most recently, TikTok fans have come forward with a number of previously unknown apps, including a Chinese social media app. known as “RedNote” or Xiaohongshu, to the top app stores where they are looking for alternatives.
Update January 17, 2025, 9:45 a.m. PT: This post has been updated to add details from Shu Chu's statement.