The U.S. Supreme Court announced Wednesday that it will hear arguments on Jan. 10 regarding the constitutionality of a federal law that could potentially ban TikTok in the United States and cut off access to its tens of millions of American users.
The Supreme Court did not grant the temporary injunction sought by TikTok to delay the enforcement of the Jan. 19 ban but agreed to hear arguments before it goes into effect. The law, approved in April, mandates that TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, sell by Jan. 19, 2025, or face a nationwide ban, citing national security and content manipulation concerns.
TikTok has maintained that the forced sale or ban infringes upon First Amendment rights and argues that the platform poses no imminent threat. The company asked the U.S. Supreme Court this week to “do what it has traditionally done in free speech cases: apply the most rigorous scrutiny to speech bans and conclude that it violates the First Amendment.”
TikTok also stated that estimates show that small businesses on TikTok could potentially “lose more than $1 billion in revenue and creators would suffer almost $300 million in lost earnings in just one month unless the ban is halted.”
The U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., rejected TikTok’s argument that the ban is unconstitutional and violates the First Amendment rights of the 170 million Americans who use the social media platform.
The Supreme Court’s decision to hear TikTok’s argument comes amid an ongoing debate about balancing national security with free speech in the digital age.
The Liberty Justice Center, on behalf of its client BASED Politics, filed a First Amendment challenge to the ban in June, and again challenged the ban earlier this week by seeking an injunction to temporarily block its enforcement. The group asked the court to hear their case and deliver a fast-track final decision.
“It’s encouraging that the Supreme Court acted so quickly to take up this case, and that the Court will hear arguments before the TikTok ban can take effect on January 19,” said Jacob Huebert, president of the Liberty Justice Center. “This law would suppress Americans’ speech on an unprecedented scale, and we’re hopeful that the Court will issue an order to stop that from ever happening.”
As the Jan. 19 deadline approaches, the Supreme Court’s ruling will be pivotal in determining TikTok’s future in the U.S. The Biden administration supports the law and has emphasized the potential risks associated with foreign ownership of the platform used by millions. In April, President Joe Biden signed a bill forcing the company to sell within a year or face the ban.
Though President-elect Donald Trump has expressed sympathy over TikTok’s position and credited the platform for helping him win the 2024 presidential election, few pathways hold much hope for the president-elect to stop the impending ban.
The potential outcome of this case could set a precedent for how the U.S. government regulates foreign-owned technology platforms operating domestically.
