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Supreme Court Upholds Law Banning TikTok if Chinese Company Won’t Sell It

Supreme Court Upholds Law Banning TikTok if Chinese Company Won’t Sell It

But Congress has determined that divestiture is necessary to address its well-supported national security concerns regarding TikTok’s data collection practices and relationship with a foreign adversary.”

The Supreme Court unanimously upholds the law that orders TikTok’s owner, ByteDance, to sell the app, or else it’s banned in America.

ByteDance appealed the law, but SCOTUS rejected arguments the law violates the First Amendment.

SCOTUS acknowledged that the TikTok law “is in many ways different in kind from the regulations of non-expressive activity that we have subjected to First Amendment scrutiny.”

“Those differences—the Act’s focus on a foreign government, the congressionally determined adversary relationship between that foreign government and the United States, and the causal steps between the regulations and the alleged burden on protected speech—may impact whether First Amendment scrutiny applies,” the Court explained.

Well, SCOTUS concluded the First Amendment does not apply since ByteDance is a foreign company and it has the responsibility of the app and the law does not target speech (I deleted the citations):

The challenged provisions are facially content neutral. They impose TikTok-specific prohibitions due to a foreign adversary’s control over the platform and make divestiture a prerequisite for the platform’s continued operation in the United States. They do not target particular speech based upon its content, contrast, e.g., Carey v. Brown, or regulate speech based on its function or purpose, contrast, e.g., Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project. Nor do they impose a “restriction, penalty, or burden” by reason of content on TikTok—a conclusion confirmed by the fact that petitioners “cannot avoid or mitigate” the effects of the Act by altering their speech. As to petitioners, the Act thus does not facially regulate “particular speech because of the topic discussed or the idea or message expressed.”

The ban goes into effect on Sunday, January 19, the day before President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration.

“There is no doubt that, for more than 170 million Americans, TikTok offers a distinctive and expansive outlet for expression, means of engagement, and source of community,” the Court wrote. “But Congress has determined that divestiture is necessary to address its well-supported national security concerns regarding TikTok’s data collection practices and relationship with a foreign adversary.”

President Joe Biden signed the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, naming TikTok and ByteDance. The act “made it functionally illegal for ‘a foreign adversary controlled application’ to operate within the United States, or for any other entity to provide ‘internet hosting services to enable the distribution, maintenance, or updating’ of the app.”

The law targets all companies where “a citizen of an adversarial nation ‘directly or indirectly own[s] at least a 20 percent stake.’”

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld a law that requires the sale or ban of TikTok in America, narrowing it down to national security.

Well, the government used what it hand on the books to ban it because ByteDance is a Chinese company:

ByteDance Ltd. owns TikTok’s proprietary algorithm, which is developed and maintained in China. The company is also responsible for developing portions of the source code that runs the TikTok platform. ByteDance Ltd. is subject to Chinese laws that require it to “assist or cooperate” with the Chinese Government’s “intelligence work” and to ensure that the Chinese Government has “the power to access and control private data” the company holds.

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Comments

Sorry, not sorry, CCP. The fact they won’t allow it in China shows a lot

    Facebook also is not allowed in China. Among other reasons, perhaps they view social media as unhelpful to the development of well-educated children. That appears to be a low priority in the USA.

A legally sound opinion. However as is typical of Roberts the Court failed to address President Trumps request for a delay in implementation

    TargaGTS in reply to sequester. | January 17, 2025 at 10:39 am

    Trump wasn’t party to the lawsuit. They couldn’t address it. Imagine how crazy lawsuits would be if courts were obligated to rule on peripheral requests by tangential parties.

      healthguyfsu in reply to TargaGTS. | January 17, 2025 at 3:22 pm

      The plaintiffs could have asked for a stay due to pending negotiations.

        TargaGTS in reply to healthguyfsu. | January 17, 2025 at 4:16 pm

        Yes, they could have. For reasons only known to them, the only relief they asked for was for the Court to find that the law violated their 1st Amendment rights and was therefore unenforceable, which was always a Quixotic demand. Once the Court grants cert on the original complaint, plaintiffs can’t amend what relief they’re seeking, for obvious reasons. If they did, the Court would send it back to the District Court to start all over. Ultimately, that may still end up happening. Of course, that presumes the Chicoms really are inclined to sell and just need more time to hammer out an agreement. I’m not confident that’s the case.

There are so many apps that do the exact same thing I am not even sure why people are so enamored with TikTok anyways.

    AbrahamFroman in reply to geronl. | January 17, 2025 at 11:34 am

    It’s an app driven almost entirely by adolescents/tween/teens. It’s tough to explain why something goes viral with this group. It’s also impossible to predict when that fascination will wane and why. Think how MySpace dropped of a cliff for no real reason. Snapchat was huge right up until it wasn’t. If it’s sold for the rumored value of $20B+, there’s a real chance that investment goes up in smoke in 5-years or less.

    Danny in reply to geronl. | January 17, 2025 at 4:04 pm

    Same as youtube it already has the audience there, and already has the videos there.

    CommoChief in reply to geronl. | January 17, 2025 at 4:56 pm

    True. However the issue is that the US government decided the CCP ownership and access to consumer data was Nat Sec threat and SCOTUS agreed.

    The better course is to blow up the current revenue model of tech platforms by enacting Federal legislation that makes all consumer data whether content or site visits and searches the exclusive property of the consumer and prohibit the collection, storing, sale or transfer of consumer data.

      Gremlin1974 in reply to CommoChief. | January 17, 2025 at 8:52 pm

      Yea, that legislation won’t happen because there are to many US companies that already steal consumers data and make big money off of doing so.

My only concern, if TikTok shuts down, will LibsofTikTok go away? What platforms will narcissistic lefties use to whine, rant and inevitably self-own themselves. Hopefully Chaya can get material elsewhere for us to enjoy.

    stevewhitemd in reply to jimincalif. | January 17, 2025 at 11:07 am

    Rest assured, LibsofBlueSky is going strong…

    Lucifer Morningstar in reply to jimincalif. | January 17, 2025 at 1:36 pm

    Rest assured. This won’t stop people from downloading and installing TikTok on their devices. It just won’t be as convenient to do so since it will no longer be available for installation in the Apple or Google App stores. They’ll just have to download the “.apk” package for Android or whatever the equivalent is for iOS and manually install it using the “Developer” mode.

I’m in the dark here, so maybe what I think is uninformed. But how is an alteration in ownership going to change anything coming out of China? No offense to anyone here, but this is like believing that litigating DEI out of existence actually removes DEI nonsense from teacher’s minds and the classroom. The word we are searching for is “lip service.”
I don’t give a damn about TikTok or any other platform. Maybe the SC is right citing that China demands access to the platform.
But tell me again what happened on 1/6 when every telephone and internet company in America willingly without a word of resistance turned over any and all records and data on people who were expressing their constitutional right to protest. We’ve come a long way from the days when Apple said they would fight to the last dying man on a hill to stop the government from getting inside their stupid iPhones to go after a terrorist. A terrorist was too sacred for them to give up their right to privacy. OTOH, 1/6 demonstrators not so much. A pox on them all, incl. the SC.

    AbrahamFroman in reply to Titan28. | January 17, 2025 at 11:40 am

    Complicated questions that aren’t easily answered or understood without understanding how apps like this work. But, presumably if the app is sold, the underlying algorithm will be substantively changed or perhaps replaced entirely. It’s the algorithm that provides the utility to the Chinese. Without control of that and the user data the app generates, there’s no utility in the app to the Chinese communists anymore.

    healthguyfsu in reply to Titan28. | January 17, 2025 at 3:24 pm

    The CCP has no first amendment rights or need to comply with US laws.

    A US company has rights and needs to comply with US laws.

    It’s that simple.

    Danny in reply to Titan28. | January 17, 2025 at 4:06 pm

    Altered ownership would mean it is no longer coming out of China, and whatever issue you have with it would be the responsibility of the relevant regulation agencies which is an enormous difference.

Sorry, Xi. We have a monopoly on stealing our own data

“Two (or three) wrongs don’t make a right” or something like that.

It is wrong for telecom companies to hand over your data without a warrant, and it is wrong and harmful for the CCP to collect data from Americans.

Maybe it is time to add an amendment to the Constitution, to explicitly recognize our right to privacy.

Elon Musk: “I’ll buy that for a dollar!!”

I don’t disagree with the law itself, but then again there are groups trying to buy it. Still this ruling saves us from Jacksom Mahommes.