TikTok warns of broader impact if SC allows ban

The lawyer for TikTok and its Chinese parent company ByteDance offered a warning during Supreme Court arguments over a law that would compel the sale of the short-video app or ban it in the United States stating that if Congress could do this to TikTok, it could come after other companies, too.

The law, which was the subject of arguments before the nine justices on Friday, sets a January 19 deadline for ByteDance to sell the popular social media platform or face a ban on national security grounds. The companies have sought, at the very least, a delay in implementation of the law, which they say violates the US Constitution's First Amendment protection against government abridgement of free speech.

Noel Francisco, representing TikTok and ByteDance, argued that Supreme Court endorsement of this law could enable statutes targeting other companies on similar grounds. The justices signalled through their questions during the arguments that they were inclined to uphold the law, although some expressed serious concerns about its First Amendment implications.

Jeffrey Fisher, the lawyer representing TikTok content creators who also have challenged the law, noted during the Supreme Court arguments that Congress with this measure was focusing on TikTok and not major Chinese online retailers including Temu. "Would a Congress (that is) really worried about these very dramatic risks leave out an e-commerce site like Temu that has 70 million Americans using it?" Fisher asked. "It's very curious why you just single out TikTok alone and not other companies with tens of millions of people having their own data taken in the process of engaging with those websites and equally, if not more, available to Chinese control."

Democratic President Joe Biden signed the measure into law and his administration is defending it in this case. The deadline for divestiture is just one day before Republican Donald Trump opposes the ban, takes office as Biden's successor.