Supreme Court unanimously upholds impending TikTok ban
Caroline MolloyIn a unanimous Friday ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a bipartisan law signed by outgoing President Joe Biden last year that would ban the short-form video-sharing app TikTok if its owner, Chinese company ByteDance, does not divest of it by Sunday.
The legislation, passed and signed in April 2024, was mainly intended to prevent the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) – which ByteDance is known to have ties to – from using TikTok to exert influence over the app’s mostly young userbase.
The Court concluded that the law does not violate TikTok’s or its content creators’ First Amendment rights.
“Congress has determined that divestiture is necessary to address its well-supported national security concerns regarding TikTok’s data collection practices and relationship with a foreign adversary,” the Court wrote in its ruling.
The Washington Post noted that the “unanimous decision was a major blow for TikTok, injecting deep uncertainty into the app’s future.”
It is “unlikely” that a “last-minute” divesture of TikTok will occur by the rapidly-approaching deadline, according to the Post, meaning the impending ban on the app, known for its immense popularity among Generation Z, will almost certainly go into effect Sunday.
