Supreme Court upholds ban on TikTok; What this will mean for the app and users on Sunday
The Supreme Court upheld the law that would ban the TikTok app in the United States effective on Sunday after siding with the government's national security concerns.
Last year, Congress passed a law that forces TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, to sell its U.S. operation, or face a nationwide ban. They said ByteDance’s ties to China is a national security risk if user data is shared with the Chinese government.
China's government has a "golden share" in ByteDance, but the firm insists Chinese officials have “no bearing on ByteDance's global operations outside of China, including TikTok."
The Justice Department had argued the restriction is not on speech but on a foreign adversary's ability to control a widely used means of communication, according to news source. Unless TikTok is sold, the government said, China can gather data on Americans or manipulate the content on TikTok to shape U.S. opinion.
As it stands, ByteDance must sell the US operations for social media platform by Jan. 19 or shut it down.
Just before the court release its decision today, President-elect Donald Trump said on social media he’d just spoken with Chinese President Xi Jinping about TikTok and other issues.
“It is my expectation that we will solve many problems together, and starting immediately,” Trump posted.
Trump vowed while on the campaign trail to save the popular app from a forced shutdown.
“I have a warm spot in my heart for TikTok,” Trump said last month.
According to several news outlets, Trump is considering issuing an executive order when he takes office next week to override a national ban on TikTok. Albeit, an executive order by the president, once in power, may not be a simple fix to the ban. It would only order officials not to enforce the ban.
What happens to TikTok app on Sunday?
According to TikTok's attorney Noel Francisco, the platform would "go dark" on Sunday. “Essentially the platform shuts down," he said.
However the law doesn't require TikTok itself to act, rather it falls on the app stores and companies such as Oracle that host the app's content in the US. Changes by these companies would make the platform harder to use over time, but not necessarily cut it off for users who already have the app.