The Supreme Court has cleared the way for TikTok to be banned in the United States on Sunday, ruling that a policy aiming to force the app to change owners does not violate free speech protections.
Friday’s decision is a per curiam ruling, meaning that it’s attributed to the Supreme Court as a whole, rather than a group of individual justices.
The court agreed with the government’s claim that national security concerns justify the TikTok ban.
“There is no doubt that, for more than 170 million Americans, TikTok offers a distinctive and expansive outlet for expression, means of engagement, and source of community. But Congress has determined that divestiture is necessary to address its well-supported national security concerns regarding TikTok’s data collection practices and relationship with a foreign adversary,” the ruling said.
TikTok lawsuit
The Supreme Court’s TikTok case centered on a law passed by Congress and signed by President Joe Biden in April.
The legislation said that the popular short-form video app would be banned from U.S. app stores if its parent company, ByteDance, did not divest within nine months.
TikTok and ByteDance, as well as some TikTok content creators, sued to try to block the policy’s implementation, arguing that the law was trampling their free speech rights.
But they lost in front of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in December and now in front of the Supreme Court.
Both courts determined that lawmakers' national security concerns outweigh associated concerns about free speech.
The Supreme Court wrote that the legislation at issue was clearly motivated by a desire to protect the country from Chinese interference, not a desire to limit TikTok users' expression.
“The challenged provisions further an important Government interest unrelated to the suppression of free expression and do not burden substantially more speech than necessary to further that interest,” Friday’s ruling said.
Will TikTok be banned?
Although TikTok and ByteDance have no higher court to appeal to, they may still sidestep the pending ban.
An official who chose to remain anonymous told The Associated Press on Thursday that Biden does not plan to enforce the TikTok ban when it takes effect on Sunday. He’ll instead leave it up to President-elect Donald Trump to decide what to do next.
Trump will reportedly work to keep TikTok available in the U.S., whether by brokering a sale or signing an executive order that disrupts or overturns the TikTok ban, per the AP.
Although the TikTok policy passed Congress with bipartisan support, there is growing fear among a variety of lawmakers that a ban will spark a costly backlash, according to The New York Times. That’s why some lawmakers who previously supported the ban now support Trump’s effort to block or delay it.
“It’s clear that more time is needed to find an American buyer and not disrupt the lives and livelihoods of millions of Americans, of so many influencers who have built up a good network of followers,” said Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, a Democratic leader, on Thursday.
TikTok’s CEO plans to attend Trump’s inauguration on Monday, as the Deseret News previously reported.