The US Supreme Court has agreed to hear TikTok owner ByteDance's appeal against a law that could ban the app. the court took the case (through NBC News) unusually quickly: just two days after the company filed its appeal. Oral arguments are scheduled for January 10.
The challenged law, the Foreign Adversaries Controlled Solicitations Protection Act, will go into effect on January 19, one day before President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration. The court did not provisionally block the law when it said it would take up the case.
The bill calls for the app to be banned if ByteDance does not sell the platform to a US company. It passed with overwhelming support in Congress and signed by President Biden in April. The argument was that TikTok had become a national security problem.
The Justice Department defended the law in lower courts, citing concerns that the Chinese government could influence the company and collect data on American citizens. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld the legislation earlier this month.
ByteDance has claimed that the law violates free speech rights, a position the ACLU has held. supported. Trump tried to ban TikTok during his first term, but changed his mind during the 2024 presidential campaign.
