Supreme Court Affirms TikTok Divestment Law

January 17, 2025 TruthUSA

The Supreme Court has decided to permit the enactment of the national security law.

On January 17, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected TikTok’s plea to pause a federal law mandating its parent company ByteDance to divest from TikTok by January 19 or halt its operations in the U.S.

The nation’s highest court moved quickly on this case just five days after the oral arguments held on January 10 in TikTok Inc. v. Garland, alongside its related case, Firebaugh v. Garland.

The recently issued court ruling concluded that the TikTok law does not infringe upon the First Amendment. The decision was unanimous, although the identity of its author remains undisclosed.

President-elect Donald Trump, who is set to be inaugurated on January 20 and has experience in social media, previously submitted a brief urging the justices to delay the law to allow him to explore a political resolution upon returning to the White House.

In its emergency application, TikTok highlighted that in 2023, around 170 million monthly users in the U.S. uploaded over 5.5 billion videos, accumulating upwards of 13 trillion views, with half of that viewership coming from outside the U.S. Moreover, U.S. users accessed content from other countries more than 2.7 trillion times during the same year.

As he nears the end of his term, President Joe Biden signed the law known as the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act on April 24, 2024, following bipartisan support in both the House and Senate.

TikTok is managed in the United States by TikTok Inc., a U.S.-based entity that is indirectly owned by Cayman Islands-based ByteDance Ltd.

While TikTok recognizes that ByteDance has subsidiaries in China and elsewhere, it asserts that Chinese influence over its operations is nonexistent.

Proponents of the law in Congress express concerns that the Chinese government exerts excessive influence over TikTok. The law articulates worries regarding the potential for Chinese officials to access and misuse the personal information of American TikTok users, possibly gaining a strategic edge over the U.S. and spreading propaganda.

During the oral arguments, TikTok’s legal representative Noel Francisco argued that the law breaches the First Amendment by “targeting a single entity with disproportionately severe measures.”

Chief Justice John Roberts remarked that Congress found ByteDance collaborates with China in content manipulation and that such cooperation is mandated by Chinese law.

“Should we disregard the reality that the ultimate parent company is subject to conducting intelligence operations for the Chinese government?” asked Roberts.

“Congress isn’t concerned with TikTok’s content; rather, the law demands that the Chinese stop exerting control over TikTok.”

This story is ongoing and will be updated as more information becomes available.

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