The US Supreme Court said on Wednesday that it will hear arguments next month on the constitutionality of a federal law that could ban TikTok in the US if its Chinese parent company does not sell it.
The justices are scheduled to hear arguments on January 10 on whether the law impermissibly restricts speech in violation of the First Amendment.
The law, passed in April, set a January 19 deadline for TikTok to be sold or face a ban in the United States. The popular social media platform has more than 170 million users in the United States
It is unclear how quickly the Supreme Court might issue a decision.
Lawyers for the company and China-based ByteDance urged judges to intervene before January 19. The Supreme Court will also hear arguments from content creators who rely on the platform for income and some TikTok users.
The timing of the arguments means that the Justice Department in the outgoing Biden administration will present the case in defense of the law, which was passed by Congress with bipartisan support and signed by Democratic President Joe Biden in April.
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The next Republican administration may not have the same view of the law.
President-elect Donald Trump, who once supported the ban but then vowed during the campaign to “save TikTok,” said his administration would take a look at the situation. Trump met with TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Florida on Monday.
The companies said a shutdown lasting just one month would cause TikTok to lose about a third of its daily users in the United States and significant advertising revenue.
The case pits free speech rights against the government’s stated goals of protecting national security, while raising new issues about social media platforms.
A panel of federal judges on the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit unanimously upheld the law on December 6, then denied an emergency request to delay implementation of the law.
Without judicial action, the law will take effect on January 19 and expose app stores that offer TikTok and the internet hosting services that support it to potential fines.
It will be up to the Justice Department to enforce the law, investigate potential violations and seek sanctions. But lawyers for TikTok and ByteDance argued that the Trump Justice Department might halt enforcement or otherwise seek to mitigate the law’s more serious consequences.
Trump takes office the day after the law takes effect.
& Edition 2024 The Canadian Press
