The Supreme Court has agreed to hear the lawsuit over the Tik Tok ban

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Just as President-elect Donald Trump assumes office, the Supreme Court added a significant case to its docket this term on Wednesday when it decided to rule on whether a controversial ban on the social media app TikTok violates the First Amendment.

On January 10, the High Court consented to expedite the case and hear arguments.

With its appeal to the Supreme Court, TikTok is putting the justices in a high-profile conflict between the platform’s executives and users, who contend that the ban is unconstitutional under the First Amendment, and Congress, which has expressed national security worries about China’s control over the app.

President Joe Biden signed the restriction into law in April after it was enacted by Congress earlier this year with bipartisan backing. While Congress has said that TikTok can continue to operate in the United States if it divests from Chinese ownership, the bill was passed in reaction to years of Washington’s worry that the Chinese parent business poses a national security danger.

Citing the government’s national security interest in regulating the site in the US, a federal appeals court in Washington, DC, unanimously maintained the ban earlier this month.

The significance of the case was highlighted by the court’s unusually prompt treatment of TikTok’s appeal.

Before determining whether to hear arguments on its normal schedule, the court reviews written submissions from both sides in the majority of cases, including emergency cases. In this instance, it agreed to consider the appeal right away, avoiding that process.

The court implied that the justices might render a decision in the case just a few days before the law takes effect on January 19 by announcing that it will hear arguments on the law’s constitutionality and postponing its consideration of whether to temporarily block the ban until the day of oral arguments.

Days after the DC Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously rejected the company’s bid to temporarily halt the statute, the case was added to the high court’s emergency docket.

Michael Hughes, the spokesperson for TikTok, said in a statement that the firm is happy the court decided to hear the case.

In order to let the more than 170 million Americans who use our platform to continue exercising their right to free speech, we think the Court will rule that the TikTok restriction is unlawful, he told reporters.

Trump looms large

The legal struggle will have a significant impact on Trump’s reelection since, despite his dissenting opinions, he has recently seemed to embrace the program. One day after the bill goes into force, on January 20, Trump will be sworn in.

According to a person with knowledge of the encounter, Trump met with Shou Chew, the CEO of TikTok, at Mar-a-Lago on Monday. The president-elect made a suggestion that he would adopt a more lenient stance toward the platform during a press conference hours earlier.

You know, I have a soft spot in my heart for TikTok because I won youth by 34 points, and there are some who believe TikTok had something to do with it, Trump said during his first press conference since the election. (CNN’s 2024 exit polls show that among voters between the ages of 18 and 29, Trump fell 11 percentage points short of Vice President Kamala Harris.)

Given that the president-elect and his advisors have expressed support for preserving the app, TikTok’s lawyers have taken note of Trump’s comments and told the Supreme Court in an emergency appeal earlier this week that preventing the law from going into effect is appropriate because it would give the incoming administration time to decide its position.

A one-time extension to the January 19 deadline may be granted by the president under the law. Trump’s options seem more constrained, though, as he takes office one day after the ban goes into effect.

ByteDance, TikTok s Chinese parent company, has previously stated that it will not sell the platform.

Major First Amendment dispute

Given the novel legal questions it raised about the scope of First Amendment protections, the ban was widely expected to end up before the Supreme Court.

The DC Circuit ruled on December 6 that the law did not violate the Constitution, stating that it meets a legal standard known as strict scrutiny, which must be met for government restrictions on speech to stand.

The Act represented the culmination of extensive, bipartisan action by Congress and successive presidents. It was carefully crafted to address only control by a foreign adversary, and it was part of a larger effort to counter a well-substantiated national security threat posed by the (People s Republic of China), the ruling stated. Under these circumstances, the provisions of the Act that are before us withstand the most searching review.

The high court has set aside two hours for arguments on the matter next month, though the justices may spend more time scrutinizing the law during the hearing.

The court will hear arguments from attorneys for TikTok and the government, as well as attorneys for app users challenging the ban. That group includes eight TikTok users and BASED Politics, Inc., a nonprofit that uses the app to promote libertarian politics.

In recent years, the Supreme Court has repeatedly addressed social media and First Amendment issues, including an important decision in June in which a majority of the court indicated that the platforms are protected by the First Amendment.

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