TikTok turns to US Supreme Courtroom in last-ditch bid to avert ban

By Andrew Chung and David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -TikTok made a last-ditch effort on Monday to proceed working in the US, asking the Supreme Courtroom to quickly block a legislation meant to drive ByteDance, its China-based guardian firm, to divest the short-video app by Jan. 19 or face a ban.

TikTok and ByteDance filed an emergency request to the justices for an injunction to halt the looming ban on the social media app utilized by about 170 million Individuals whereas they attraction a decrease court docket’s ruling that upheld the legislation. A bunch of U.S. customers of the app filed the same request on Monday as nicely.

Congress handed the legislation in April. The Justice Division has stated that as a Chinese language firm, TikTok poses “a national-security risk of immense depth and scale” due to its entry to huge quantities of knowledge on American customers, from places to personal messages, and its means to secretly manipulate content material that Individuals view on the app.

The U.S. Courtroom of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in Washington on Dec. 6 rejected TikTok’s arguments that the legislation violates free speech protections below the U.S. Structure’s First Modification.

Of their submitting to the Supreme Courtroom, TikTok and ByteDance stated that “if Individuals, duly knowledgeable of the alleged dangers of ‘covert’ content material manipulation, select to proceed viewing content material on TikTok with their eyes huge open, the First Modification entrusts them with making that alternative, free from the federal government’s censorship.”

“And if the D.C. Circuit’s opposite holding stands, then Congress could have free rein to ban any American from talking just by figuring out some danger that the speech is influenced by a international entity,” they added.

The businesses stated that being shuttered for even one month would trigger TikTok to lose a few third of its U.S. customers and undermine its means to draw advertisers and recruit content material creators and worker expertise.

Calling itself one of many “most vital speech platforms” utilized in the US, TikTok has stated that there isn’t a imminent risk to U.S. nationwide safety and that delaying enforcement of the legislation would permit the Supreme Courtroom to contemplate the legality of the ban, and the incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump to guage the legislation as nicely.

Trump, who unsuccessfully tried to ban TikTok throughout his first time period in 2020, has reversed his stance and promised throughout the presidential race this yr that he would attempt to save TikTok. Trump takes workplace on Jan. 20, the day after the TikTok deadline below the legislation.

The legislation would “shutter one among America’s hottest speech platforms the day earlier than a presidential inauguration,” the businesses stated of their submitting. “A federal legislation singling out and banning a speech platform utilized by half of Individuals is extraordinary.”

Requested on Monday at a press convention what he would do to cease a ban on TikTok, Trump stated that he has “a heat spot in my coronary heart for TikTok” and that he would “have a look” on the matter.

Trump was assembly with TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew in Florida on Monday, a supply accustomed to the plans instructed Reuters, talking on situation of anonymity. TikTok didn’t instantly reply to a request for touch upon the assembly.

The businesses requested the Supreme Courtroom to difficulty a call on its request by Jan. 6 to permit, within the occasion it’s rejected, for the “complicated activity of shutting down TikTok” in the US and to coordinate with service suppliers by the deadline set below the legislation.

The dispute comes amid rising commerce tensions between China and the US, the world’s two largest economies.

‘RIGOROUS SCRUTINY’

TikTok has denied that it has or ever would share U.S. consumer knowledge, accusing U.S. lawmakers of advancing speculative issues.

TikTok spokesperson Michael Hughes stated after the submitting that “we’re asking the court docket to do what it has historically accomplished in free speech circumstances: apply essentially the most rigorous scrutiny to speech bans and conclude that it violates the First Modification.”

In its ruling, the D.C. Circuit wrote, “The First Modification exists to guard free speech in the US. Right here the federal government acted solely to guard that freedom from a international adversary nation and to restrict that adversary’s means to collect knowledge on folks in the US.”

The legislation would bar offering sure providers to TikTok and different international adversary-controlled apps together with providing it by app shops akin to Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL)’s Google, successfully stopping its continued U.S. use until ByteDance divests TikTok by the deadline.

A ban may open the door to a future U.S. crackdown on different foreign-owned apps. In 2020, Trump tried to ban WeChat, owned by Chinese language firm Tencent, however was blocked by the courts.