U.S. Supreme Court appears ready to hammer the nails in TikTok's coffin
The Supreme Court today made it appear likely that it will uphold a ban on short-form video site TikTok in the U.S. The ban is supposed to start on January 19th unless the court orders a temporary stay. TikTok has been under attack from U.S. lawmakers for years thanks to the connection that the app has with China. After all, TikTok is owned by Chinese company ByteDance.
U.S. lawmakers have called the app a national security threat accusing it of sending propaganda from the Chinese government to America's teens, and for stealing personal data from subscribers. Byte Dance has until January 19th to sell TikTok or get banned in the U.S. TikTok argues that there is no evidence that TikTok is doing any of these things. But during two hours of oral arguments heard today, the justices appeared to see the issue not as a question about the First Amendment but as one involving the regulation of a foreign app.
TikTok has over 100 million users in the U.S. and during his first term in office, President-elect Donald Trump nearly succeeded in banning the app via an executive order. He also tried to get TikTok sold to a U.S. company. In September 2020, then-President Trump said that he had a deal in concept that would have ended up with TikTok owned by Oracle and Walmart.
Despite imposing several deadlines on ByteDance to divest itself of TikTok, the president soon was too wrapped up with the upcoming 2020 election to put the finishing touches on any deal. And that takes us to the present time. Over the last few years, Trump has apparently changed his feelings about TikTok and seems to have no interest in banning the platform like he did during his first term.
Trump's about-face could be due to the Biden Administration's bill passed in April that demanded ByteDance sell TikTok or get banned in the U.S. Sound familiar? The difference now is that during his 2024 presidential campaign, Trump said, "For all of those who want to save TikTok in America, vote Trump." Trump's newfound love for TikTok was seemingly part of a plan to win the youth vote.
To help him with that demographic, Donald Trump reportedly took advice from his 18-year-old son Barron who advised his Dad to make an appearance on Joe Rogan's podcast which turned out to be a very successful move. It is possible that Barron convinced his Dad that being on the side of TikTok would help him politically with teen voters.
While the deadline is January 19th, the day before Trump is sworn in as president, a 90-day extension can be granted if there are signs that a deal to sell TikTok is about to be made. Ironically, during his second term, Donald Trump seems ready, willing, and able to go to bat to save TikTok in the U.S. But what the Supreme Court rules will also help decide what happens and based on the behavior of the justices today, a TikTok ban seems more likely than it did yesterday.
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