The US Supreme Court on Wednesday decided to hear a request by TikTok and its parent company, China-based ByteDance, to temporarily overturn a law forcing ByteDance to sell the social network TikTok by January 19. Otherwise, access to TikTok will be prohibited for US users due to national security issues.
The judges of the Supreme Court did not immediately respond to the emergency request of TikTok, ByteDance and some of its users, to issue an order to temporarily cancel the ban, and the review of these requests was postponed to January 10.
According to Reuters, TikTok and its users have filed an appeal to overturn a lower court’s ruling that upheld the law. TikTok currently has about 170 million users in the United States. Congress passed a bill to ban TikTok in April and then-President Joe Biden signed it into law; This law gave the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) more power to review and limit foreign investments in US companies that may pose a threat to national security.
The United States Department of Justice says that TikTok, as a Chinese company, has access to the data of American users, including their geographic location and private messages, which could be considered a great threat to the national security of the United States; Because it can secretly manipulate the content displayed to Americans. TikTok has stressed that it poses no immediate threat to US security.
On December 16, TikTok and Bytedance asked the Supreme Court to stop the implementation of this law; Because they believe that this law violates the rights of freedom of speech under the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. TikTok announced on Wednesday that it was pleased with the Supreme Court’s decision to hear the matter.
“We believe the Supreme Court will strike down this ban as unconstitutional so the more than 170 million Americans who use our platform can maintain their right to free speech,” the company added.
TikTok and ByteDance have stated that shutting down the platform even for a month would cause it to lose about a third of its US users and weaken TikTok’s ability to attract advertisers and content producers and talent.
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Mitch McConnell The leader of the Republicans in the US Senate, in a petition sent to the Supreme Court on Wednesday, called TikTok a professional criminal and asked the court to prevent any delay in its decision.
Trump He also tried to ban Tik Tok during his presidency, but faced legal opposition. In this year’s election campaign, he announced that he plans to save TikTok and will investigate the matter. He will assume the presidency on January 20 (March 1), one day after the expiration of the legal deadline to shut down Tik Tok.
