The Supreme Court said Wednesday it will hear TikTok's First Amendment challenge to a law that could result in a ban on the app.
The justices put off a decision on TikTok's request to immediately block the law, but scheduled arguments in the matter for January 10 -- nine days before the statute is slated to take effect.
The Protecting Americans From Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act (H.R. 7521), passed earlier this year, will prohibit app stores and websites from distributing TikTok unless it's sold by China-based parent company ByteDance by January 19. The statute provides that the U.S. president can extend that deadline by three months, but President Joe Biden, who will still be in office January 19, hasn't yet indicated whether he will do so.
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When lawmakers passed the measure, they expressed concerns that without a divestiture, the Chinese government may be able to access data about TikTok's users, and use the app to influence public opinion.
TikTok and a group of content creators sued to block the law, arguing that it violates the free speech rights of TikTok as well as its users.
The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected that challenge earlier this month, ruling on December 6 that the law's curbs on speech are justified by national security concerns. The appellate judges noted in their opinion that Congress was worried about the risk of the Chinese “covertly manipulating content on the platform.”
On Monday, TikTok and the content creators filed separate emergency petitions urging the Supreme Court to halt the law.
“Congress’s unprecedented attempt to single out applicants and bar them from operating one of the most significant speech platforms in this nation presents grave constitutional problems that this court likely will not allow to stand,” TikTok argued.
TikTok added that will face "massive irreparable injury” if the app, used by an estimated 170 million Americans each month, shuts down next month. A company spokesman separately stated that even a one-month ban on TikTok would cost the company more than $1 billion in revenue, and cost creators almost $300 million in earnings.
A coalition of digital rights groups urged the Supreme Court to block the law, arguing that even if the measure is framed as targeting “covert manipulation,” it's still an unconstitutional content-based restriction on speech.
“The record is clear that the government’s concerns about “covert manipulation” are at bottom concerns about propaganda -- i.e. about Americans’ access to the perceived content and viewpoints presented on TikTok,” the groups wrote.
“There is no legitimate (let alone compelling) interest in throttling Americans’ ability to receive information, even where the government regards that information as 'communist political propaganda' or 'the seeds of treason,” they added, quoting from a 1965 Supreme Court decision invalidating a law that restricted postal delivery of foreign communist propaganda.