US Supreme Court Tends To Support TikTok Ban In The US

JAKARTA - The US Supreme Court appears to tend to support legislation requiring TikTok to be sold or banned in the United States before January 19. The judges focused on concerns over national security regarding China that sparked prosecution of this popular short video app.

For about 2.5 hours of arguments, nine judges urged lawyers representing TikTok, its parent company ByteDance, and users of apps on the risks of the Chinese government utilizing platforms to spy on Americans and carry out influence operations secretly, as well as questioning issues of freedom of speech.

"Are we supposed to ignore the fact that the parent company, in fact, should do intelligence work for the Chinese government?" asked the Chief Justice of Conservatives, John Roberts, to Noel Francisco, lawyers for TikTok and ByteDance.

Companies and users are suing to block legislation passed by Congress with bipartisan support last year and signed by US President Joe Biden's outgoing Democratic Party, who is now defending the law. They appealed to a lower-level court ruling in favor of the law and rejected their argument that the law violated the First Amendment to the US Constitution to protect free speech.

Several judges expressed concerns about the impact the law has on free speech, but their key concerns appear to focus on national security implications related to social media platforms owned by foreign entities collecting data from 170 million domestic users in the US, nearly half of the US population.

Conservative Judge Brett Kavanaugh asked Francisco about the potential long-term risk of data collection by China against users, especially those who joined the app from a young age, and the use of "the information over time to develop spies, reverse people, extort people who may in a generation will work at the FBI, CIA, or State Department."

The Supreme Court's consideration of this case comes at a time when trade tensions between the two world's largest economies are rising. Donald Trump, who will start his second term as president on January 20, opposes the ban.

Trump on December 27 urged the court to postpone the divestment deadline on January 19 to provide "an opportunity for future governments to pursue political resolutions to the questions that exist in this case."

Francisco calls the TikTok app one of the most popular speech platforms among Americans and says the platform will basically shut down on January 19 without divestment. Francisco stated that the real target of this law is "the word itself - the fear that Americans, although fully informed, could be persuaded by misinformation from China. However, it was a decision submitted by the First Amendment to the people."

Regarding Trump's position in this case, Francisco asked the judges to at least postpone the implementation of the law while they consider this big issue, "which may eventually cancel this case."

In a question inspired by the Cold War, Liberal Judge Elena Kagan raised a hypothetical question about whether Congress could force the American Communist Party to break away from the Soviet Union in the 1950s.

Francisco suggested that on January 19 "as far as I understand, TikTok will be dark. This platform will basically be turned off unless there is a divestment, unless President Trump uses his authority to extend it." However, Trump could not do that on January 19 because he would only be sworn in the following day, Francisco said.

In response to a question from Conservative Judge Amy Coney Barrett, Francisco said that it might take "a few years" for ByteDance to divest against TikTok.

The Biden administration's prelogar said China's government control over TikTok poses a serious threat to US national security. TikTok's huge data on US users and their non-user contacts provide China with powerful tools for terror, recruitment and espionage. The prelogar stressed that the First Amendment did not deter Congress from acting to protect Americans and their data.