At US Supreme Court, TikTok’s pleas to honour free speech are met with scepticism

But observers split on whether a ‘dark day’ for 170 million American users looms or a preliminary injunction to delay the ruling is coming

Reading Time:4 minutes

TikTok, a short-video app, has more than 170 million American users. Its parent company is ByteDance, a Chinese tech company. Photo: AFP

Khushboo Razdanin WashingtonandKawala Xiein Washington

Published: 7:00am, 11 Jan 2025Updated: 7:04pm, 11 Jan 2025

Oral arguments before the US Supreme Court on Friday addressing TikTok’s potential ban across the country underscored a tension between American national security concerns linked to foreign ownership and First Amendment free-speech rights.

At the heart of the debate was whether a government-imposed, sell-or-ban measure would be a disproportionate response, potentially infringing on free speech, or if the risks posed by data security and foreign influence justified such a sweeping move.

The hearing, spanning more than two hours, raised fundamental questions about how to balance national security with the rights of hundreds of millions of American users, amid fears their data collected by TikTok, owned by Chinese tech company ByteDance, could one day be used by the mainland government against US interests.

The questions posed by the justices revealed an apparent inclination to lean more towards focusing on national security concerns than the free-speech arguments put forward by TikTok and its content creators.

Jeffrey Fisher of law firm O’Melveny, representing TikTok content creators, departs after taking part in oral arguments before the US Supreme Court in Washington on Friday. Photo: Getty Images via AFP

Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, for instance, suggested the law was aimed at ByteDance as a non-American entity, not TikTok. Roberts said Congress cared not about TikTok’s content but who owns the company.

Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh asked about the risk of the Chinese government using Americans’ data to “develop spies, turn people, blackmail people”.