TikTok, the video social media platform owned by Chinese-controlled ByteDance, argued against its impending ban in the United States before the Supreme Court on Friday. However, the social media company appears to have found little enthusiasm in their defense among the high court’s justices.
The oral arguments—stemming from an emergency appeal of a law requiring the Chinese-owned ByteDance to divest from TikTok or face a ban of the platform in the U.S.—mostly circled around the constitutional question of viewpoint and content restrictions enacted by Congress. Despite TikTok insisting the case was a simple matter of First Amendment speech rights, the justices pushed the case into the realm of the constitutional question of association—specifically with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)-controlled ByteDance—as well.
TikTok’s counsel Noel Francisco insisted that the video social media platform is not ‘ultimately’ controlled by ByteDance and that Congress’s divestiture law clearly violates the company’s—and its users’— free speech rights. Currently, TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, must divest from the company by January 19. If this divestiture does not occur, the social media platform will be barred from being downloaded to U.S. social media app stores. Thus far, ByteDance has insisted it will not divest from its American social media company.
