Supreme Court seems poised to uphold law

SOCIAL MEDIA

TikTok: Majority of justices satisfied goal of law not aimed at free speech but Chinese ownership of popular platform

Participants hold signs in support of TikTok outside the U.S. Capitol Building last year, in Washington, D.C. The Supreme Court seemed inclined on Friday to uphold a law requiring TikTok be sold or effectively be banned in the United States. ANNA MONEYMAKER — GETTY IMAGES

Sarah Baus, left, and Callie Goodwin, center, both TikTok creators, record a news conference organized by TikTok in Washington, on Friday. CAROLINE GUTMAN — THE NEW YORK TIMES

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By Adam Liptak

The New York Times

WASHINGTON >> The Supreme Court seemed inclined on Friday to uphold a law that could effectively ban TikTok, the wildly popular app used by half of the country.

Even as several justices expressed concerns that the law was in tension with the First Amendment, a majority appeared satisfied that it was aimed not at TikTok’s speech rights but rather at its ownership, which the government says is controlled by China. The law requires the app’s parent company, ByteDance, to sell TikTok by Jan. 19. If it does not, the law requires the app to be shut down.

The government offered two rationales for the law: combating covert disinformation from China and barring it from harvesting private information about Americans. The court was divided over the first justification. But several justices seemed troubled by the possibility that China could use data culled from the app for espionage or blackmail.

“Congress and the president were concerned,” Justice Brett Kavanaugh said, “that China was accessing information about millions of Americans, tens of millions of Americans, including teenagers, people in their 20s.”

That data, he added, could be used “over time to develop spies, to turn people, to blackmail people, people who a generation from now will be working in the FBI or the CIA or in the State Department.”

Noel J. Francisco, a lawyer for TikTok, said he did not dispute those risks. But he said the government could address them by means short of effectively ordering the app to, as he put it, “go dark.”

The court has put the case on an exceptionally fast track, and it is likely to rule by the end of next week. Its decision will be among the most consequential of the digital age, as TikTok has become a cultural phenomenon.

The law, enacted in April with broad bipartisan support, said urgent measures were needed because ByteDance was effectively controlled by the Chinese government.

TikTok has urged the court to strike down the law, saying that it violates both its First Amendment rights and those of its 170 million American users. It has repeatedly argued that a sale is impossible.

The deadline set by the law falls one day before the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump. Last month, he asked the justices to temporarily block the law so that he could address the matter once in office.