Author: Kanishka Singh
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Donald Trump has urged the U.S. Supreme Court to halt a federal TikTok law that would ban the popular social media app or force its sale, with the U.S. Republican president-elect arguing he should have time to seek a “political solution” once he takes office. this issue.
TikTok and its owner ByteDance are fighting to keep the popular app online in the United States after Congress voted in April to ban it unless the app’s Chinese parent company sold it by Jan. 19.
They demanded that the law be invalidated, and the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case. However, if the court does not rule in ByteDance’s favor and no divestment occurs, the app could be effectively banned in the United States on January 19, the day before Trump takes office.
“This case highlights an unprecedented, new and difficult tension between free speech rights, on the one hand, and foreign policy and national security concerns, on the other,” Trump said in a letter Friday.
“Such a suspension would significantly afford President Trump the opportunity to adopt a policy resolution that could avoid the need for the Court to decide these constitutionally important issues,” the motion added.
Free speech advocates separately told the Supreme Court on Friday that the U.S. law against Chinese-owned TikTok invokes censorship regimes put in place by authoritarian enemies of the United States.
Earlier this week, Trump indicated he was in favor of allowing TikTok to continue operating in the United States at least for a while, claiming it had received billions of views on the social media platform during his presidential campaign.
The US Department of Justice has argued that Chinese control over TikTok poses an ongoing threat to national security, a view supported by most US lawmakers.
TikTok claims that the Justice Department mischaracterized the social media app’s ties to China, arguing that its content recommendation engine and user data are stored in the United States on cloud servers operated by Oracle Company (NYSE:) and content moderation decisions that affect US users are also made in the United States.
