The US Supreme Court agreed on Wednesday to hear TikTok’s request to appeal a ruling that forces its Chinese parent company to sell the popular short-video app or have it banned in the United States.
The law, signed by US President Joe Biden in April, bans TikTok from US app stores and web hosting services unless ByteDance sells its stake in the app by January 19, 2025.
On its part, TikTok argues that the Protecting Americans from Foreign Censorship Act violates First Amendment free speech rights, prompting it to file a motion to reconsider the law.
“Congress has enacted massive and unprecedented restrictions on free speech,” the app, which claims to have more than 170 million monthly users in the United States, said in a lawsuit filed with the Supreme Court.
TikTok added in the lawsuit that if the law goes into effect, it would “shut down one of America’s most popular public speaking platforms the day before the inauguration, potentially silencing the speech of applicants and many Americans who use the platform to communicate about politics, commerce, the arts, and other matters of public interest.”
The app also noted that countless small businesses rely on the platform, and warned that a ban would cause them “significant and irrecoverable financial and competitive harm.”
US President-elect Donald Trump has emerged as an unlikely ally of TikTok, amid concerns that a ban on the app would primarily benefit Meta, and most likely Instagram.
In a press conference on Monday, Trump said his administration would take a look at the app and a potential ban, highlighting previous Republican criticism of Meta for allegedly suppressing right-wing content, especially after former President Trump was banned from Facebook after the riots at the US Capitol in 2021.
Meantime, TikTok's parent Bytedance Share price dropped -0.25% to $134.98 on Wednesday.
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