Supreme Court justices Friday sounded likely to uphold a bipartisan law that could force TikTok to shut down in the U.S. in just a few days time.
During more than two hours of arguments, justices from across the political spectrum seemed skeptical of the social media company’s claim that a law banning the app — owned by Chinese-based ByteDance — would violate the free speech rights of the owners and TikTok’s 170 million American users.
“It doesn’t’ say, ‘TikTok, you can’t speak,’” liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said.
“The law doesn’t say TikTok has to shut down. It says ByteDance has to (sell TikTok),” conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett said, referring to the law’s Jan. 19 deadline for a Chinese company to sell the app’s American operation.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh, a conservative appointed by President-elect Trump in his first term, sounded open to the government’s claim that the law was intended to prevent possible Chinese indoctrination of a generation of American youth.
“That seems like a huge concern for the future of the country,” said Kavanaugh, who has two teenage daughters.
The top court did not say when it might rule. But the law goes into effect a week from Sunday, the day before Trump is inaugurated, unless the Supreme Court blocks it.
Trump, who has no direct role in the case, nevertheless has asked the justices to put the law on hold until he can seek to broker a solution once he’s back in the White House.
Republicans and Democrats alike overwhelmingly backed the law that orders ByteDance to sell the American operation of the app, or shut it down. President Biden signed it into law, teeing up the current court fight.
TikTok lawyers called the law an unconstitutional effort to muzzle the app and its tens of millions of users. It says Congress has no right to effectively ban a platform that is widely used for political discussion and e-commerce.
A government lawyer defended the law as a narrowly tailored effort to prevent Communist-ruled China from continuing to have unfettered access to the phones and minds of Americans.
Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar stressed that the law doesn’t take any stance on the cute cat videos, glitzy cosmetics ads and political statements from all sides that are posted on TikTok.
“All of the same speech that’s happening on TikTok could (still) happen,” she said, adding, “All the act is doing is trying to surgically remove the ability of foreign adversary nation to get our data and to be able to exercise control over the platform.”
She said a shutdown might not be permanent and noted that Congress may have anticipated that ByteDance would only take the edict to sell seriously once a shutdown takes effect, at least temporarily.