The Supreme Court of the United States was inclined this Friday to support the law that could close the social network TikTok in the country if it is not separated from its parent company, the Chinese ByteDance, before January 19, as stipulated by the rule.
The High Court held a hearing this Friday, at the request of the platform, which lasted about 3 hours, to study whether the law goes against the First Amendment of the US Constitution (which includes freedom of expression), as alleged. TikTok; or, on the contrary, the protection of national security prevails against possible interference by the Chinese Government, as defended by the federal administration.
“The law only targets this foreign company (ByteDance), which has no First Amendment rights,” said progressive Justice Kagan.
The rule, passed by Congress in April 2024 by Democrats and Republicans, gave ByteDance nine months to find an investor from a country that is not considered an “adversary” of the United States to sell its operations.
After overcoming all the judicial phases in other courts and not ruling in their favor, the creators of TikTok and the company asked the High Court to review the constitutionality of the law.
Read: US Supreme Court begins hearings on battle over impending TikTok ban
In addition, they argued that the fact that the law came into force on Joe Biden’s last day as president of the country, before Republican Donald Trump is inaugurated on the 20th, made the idea of, at least, postponing “especially appropriate.” the ban.
During the first part of the hearing, in which the platform’s lawyer and another representing content creators participated, the magistrates focused the debate on the power that the Chinese Government has with TikTok.
In fact, Judge Brett Kavanaugh replied to TikTok’s lawyer, who asked to respect freedom of expression, that China through the social network could “develop spies and convert and blackmail” young Americans.
“The concern is that they are regulating a media outlet,” added Justice John Roberts.
Rule goes against freedom of expression: TikTok
Noel Francisco, representative of TikTok, defended that the rule meant opening the door to censorship and that it went against the freedom of expression of the company and users.
“You couldn’t go to CNN or Fox News and tell them: “We are going to regulate them because they are manipulating the content in a way that we don’t like…”,” he said.
One of the options proposed by the magistrates was to give the platform more time to separate itself from its parent company so that TikTok can continue operating in the country, but it did not convince the defense: “It would be excessively difficult in any period.”
Prosecutor Elizabeth Prelogar explained that the data collection and manipulation of content that, she claimed, TikTok does, are threats to national security.
And although some magistrates showed some skepticism about his arguments about the manipulation of content, Prelogar affirmed that the evidence of data collection is already sufficient for the Court to support the law.
Given the deadlines, the Supreme Court acted with unusual speed in this case, so it is expected that it will be able to quickly decide what to do with the rule and later issue a more extensive opinion.
If the court ends up approving the federal rule, TikTok will shut down on January 19, as the creators warned that if ByteDance loses the trial, they will close the platform.
The future president of the country, Donald Trump, who tried to ban the social network during his first term (2017-2021), asked the Supreme Court to paralyze the entry into force of the law until he was in office.
The Republican, who during the election campaign said he would “save TikTok,” has met with TikTok’s CEO, Shou Zi Chew, at his residence in Mar-a-Lago (Florida), according to some media reports.
With information from EFE
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