The United States Supreme Court heard oral arguments Friday morning in the case concerning a potential ban of the popular, Chinese-owned social media app TikTok.
Justices are expected to rule quickly in this case, as the app is set to be banned in U.S. app stores in just a matter of days.
The deadline for TikTok’s parent company ByteDance to comply with the law’s divestiture requirement is January 19, just nine days after the Justices heard the case.
During roughly two-and-a-half hours worth of oral arguments, the Justices appeared somewhat skeptical of the arguments made by TikTok and on behalf of the platform’s content creators, signaling that they are likely to upload the impending ban.
[RELATED: Possible TikTok Ban Headed to the Supreme Court]
While the attorneys representing TikTok focused primarily on the concerns expressed by members of Congress regarding the content that could possibly be shared on the platform, the government’s representative emphasized the potentiality of “covert manipulation” by the Chinese government.
Although the law is primarily directed at ByteDance, Noel Francisco — the attorney representing both TikTok and ByteDance in this case — suggested that the directive would, in practice, function as a limitation on the U.S. subsidiary of TikTok as they would be the ones “suffering the burden under that law.”
During a back and forth with the Justices, Francisco suggested that a complete divestment of ByteDance from TikTok would not only be unreasonable within the current timeline, but that it would be “extraordinarily difficult” to accomplish at all.
According to Francisco, doing so would result in the U.S. app becoming completely divorced from the other content shared on the app worldwide.
It was also noted that divestment would likely result in a loss of access to the proprietary algorithm that has become synonymous with the platform, dramatically impacting the way that users interact with the platform.
When asked by Justice Brett Kavanaugh what would happen to TikTok on January 19 absent action in their favor from the Court, Francisco said: “At least as I understand it, we go dark. Essentially the platform shuts down.”
Jeffrey Fisher — representing TikTok content creator Brian Firebaugh — argued before the Justices that American content creators ought to have a protected right to work with foreign companies if they so choose, in this case ByteDance.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett asked Fisher if the fact that the law was directed toward ByteDance — not TikTok users — made a difference. Fisher argued that it does not because its practical effect would be to prevent users from working with ByteDance.
Although Justice Samuel Alito suggested the possibility of TikTok content creators migrating to other platforms, Fisher noted that this has not been possible thus far, as creators were not able to gain the same kind of following as they did on TikTok.
He also likened telling TikTok content creators to just start posting on other platforms to telling writers to just publish their op-eds in a different newspaper.
Both Fisher and Fransisco argued that because one of the government’s motivations for attempting to force ByteDance to divest from TikTok was to prevent potential anti-American speech on the platform, this ought to invalidate the law despite assertions that the law was also driven a number of data security concerns.
In sharing his interpretation of the law, Chief Justice John Roberts suggests that Congress was “fine with the expression,” but that “they’re not fine with a foreign adversary, as they’ve determined it is, gathering all this information about the 170 million people who use TikTok.”
Kavanaugh offered a similar statement, suggesting that members of Congress and the President “were concerned that China was accessing information about millions of Americans – tens of millions of Americans – including teenagers, people in their twenties,” and that China may use that information “to turn people, to blackmail people – people who a generation from now will be working in the FBI or the CIA or in the State Department.”
Fisher also pointed toward the government’s failure to target other Chinese-owned platforms — such as the online shopping site Temu — that are also known to collect substantial amounts of data on American citizens.
Arguing on behalf of the government, U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar contended that the law in question does not target speech on the platform, as the other attorneys had suggested.
Instead, she emphasized that the law in question would leave TikTok entirely unrestricted once a complete divestiture on the part of ByteDance took place.
In response to a question from Justice Clarence Thomas, Prelogar explained that the government is seeking to target “covert content manipulation” by China that would effectively “weaponize” the platform behind the scenes in order to achieve any number of “geopolitical” goals.
“For years, the Chinese government has sought to build detailed profiles about Americans – where we live and work, who are friends and coworkers are, what our interests are and what our vices are,” Prelogar argued.
In response to a question from Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Prelogar said that the amount of data TikTok collects from U.S. users is “eye opening,” saying that the app sends “a wealth of data about Americans” back to China in order for the app to function.
When asked if a disclosure would solve this problem, she said it would not as simply noting that there was a possibility of covert content manipulation on the platform would not help users identify which, if any, videos were shown to them as a result of such tactics.
Earlier in the oral arguments, Justice Neil Gorsuch — who appeared to be concerned about the possibility of a ban on the app — had pointed out that TikTok has said “it could even live with a disclaimer on its website saying this can be covertly manipulated by China.”
Prelogar did not take a position on whether or not it would be possible for the an extension to be granted to ByteDance after January 19 once the Trump Administration has taken office.
Click Here to Listen to the Full Oral Arguments
Approved by a bipartisan vote of 79-18 in the Senate and signed into law by President Joe Biden (D), the law at the center of this challenge would ban TikTok from all US app stores on January 19 — about about nine months after the bill’s passage — unless ByteDance sells the social media site.
Division H of HR 815 — the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act — originated as a standalone House bill in March where it was quickly approved by a strong bipartisan majority in a vote of 352-65.
The measure stalled in the Senate, however, before being added into the omnibus foreign aid package.
[RELATED: Potential TikTok Ban Passes U.S. House of Reps with Strong Bipartisan Support]
Although this law is frequently referred to as a ban on TikTok, lawmakers have previously pushed back on this interpretation, suggesting that it primarily functions as a divestment requirement.
TikTok has been subject to heightened scrutiny in recent months over data privacy concerns, as Chinese law requires the country’s businesses to share information with the government upon request.
Despite this law, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew has denied ever having shared U.S. users’ data with the Chinese government, stating before Congress that the company has begun taking steps to ensure that American data continues to remain shielded from Chinese officials, citing what has become known as “Project Texas.”
The $1.5 billion plan primarily entails transferring the data of U.S. TikTok users to the cloud infrastructure of Oracle — a cloud company based in Austin, Texas — as well as restructuring their U.S. operations to provide a greater level of transparency and oversight in an effort to increase American confidence in the platform’s security.
Regardless of this, both the federal government and a number of states had previously taken action to ban the download or use of TikTok on government-owned devices due to security concerns.
As of January 2023, 33 states — including Maine — had put in place some form of a ban on TikTok for government-issued devices.
Other than a few narcissists making a “ side hustle “ out of it , I have NEVER heard of anyone who benefited from it by actually “ learning” something from it .
Stupid prank stuff , eating laundry soap , young girls in under ware , AI generated images , kitten videos , it’s mostly a bunch of mindless trash .
I’m confident the cry babies will find a new site to swoon over if the feds shut this one down .
The Chinese are not our friends . It benefits THEM more than it benefits US .
America First ! Shut it down !