The Supreme Court (SC) of the United States (US) appeared determined on Friday to uphold the law targeting TikTok, according to reports.
The controversial piece of legislation, known as “Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act”, has been the centre of attention since it was approved by outgoing President Joe Biden last year. It forces the sale of TikTok’s local operations across the US or the short-video platform will face a permanent ban.
The law was set to be debated in the SC on January 19, with TikTok expressing hopes that the court would find it in violation of the First Amendment. However, according to the reports that have emerged so far, the judges seemed inclined to uphold the contentious law, placing emphasis on the US’ “national security”.
Reports suggest that the lawyers representing TikTok (owned by Chinese company, ByteDance) were questioned about China’s government’s potential interference with the privacy of US users, and whether the platform carried out any covert influence operations in the country. TikTok has long has been accused of spying on US citizens for “traditional espionage purposes”.
The law was formulated on the rationale of protecting “national security”, for TikTok is a Chinese app, and China is a direct and long-standing adversary to the US. The US intelligence agencies, however, have not yet presented any direct or indirect evidence of the Chinese government weaponising TikTok against the US.
The development comes at a time when president-elect Republican Donald Trump, who was previously against TikTok, remarked that it would be worth keeping the app for a while because it boosted his election campaign. The looming ban has been roundly condemned by TikTok users in the US, digital rights activists, and tech experts. TikTok itself has called the law an attempt to “silence” US users.
TikTok is expected to be banned in the US on January 19, a day before Trump takes office. It has over 170 million users in the US.
