Supreme Court Likely To Uphold Law Forcing TikTok Sale

The Chinese-owned social media company could shut down its U.S. subsidiary Jan. 19 if the high court upholds the law.

All nine Supreme Court justices expressed deep skepticism of arguments made by the social media company TikTok on Friday that a law forcing its Chinese parent company to sell its U.S. subsidiary would unconstitutionally violate its free speech rights.

At issue is a bipartisan law passed by Congress and signed by President Joe Biden that would prevent app stores from carrying TikTok or updates to the existing app unless ByteDance, the Chinese parent company, sells its U.S. subsidiary TikTok Inc. to a person or entity not controlled by the laws of a foreign adversary nation. ByteDance has stated that it will not sell its U.S. subsidiary, and TikTok Inc. states that it will shut down if the law goes into effect Jan. 19.

The case pits questions of national security and data protection against free speech protected by the First Amendment. When Congress passed the law, lawmakers expressed concerns that the Chinese government could use TikTok to either manipulate the American public or use the vast data it has collected from the 170 million American users, including direct messages, to blackmail, coerce or recruit individual Americans who may join the military or serve in government positions in the future. Chinese law, which has jurisdiction over ByteDance, could require companies to hand over data to government intelligence services.

TikTok lawyer Noel Francisco argued that the law unconstitutionally burdened the speech rights of the U.S. corporation TikTok by seeking to prevent it from using ByteDance’s algorithm and by raising concerns about potential content manipulation.

“One thing is clear, it’s a burden on TikTok’s speech, so the First Amendment applies,” Francisco said. “The act is content-based from beginning to end. It applies only to social media platforms that have user-generated content except for business, product and travel reviews.”