TikTok pushes US Supreme Court to rule that divest-or-ban law is unconstitutional; Trump weighs in

Oral arguments before the high court are set for January 10, nine days before the divest-or-ban law is to go into effect

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The US Supreme Court agreed to hear TikTok’s appeal of a law that would force ByteDance, its Chinese owner, to sell the popular online video-sharing platform or shut it down in the US. Oral arguments are scheduled for January 10, 2025, nine days before the ban is to go into effect. Photo: AFP

Published: 6:56am, 28 Dec 2024Updated: 7:17am, 28 Dec 2024

In a brief filed with the US Supreme Court on Friday, TikTok reiterated its position that a law requiring the Chinese-owned short video app to be banned by January 19, 2025, unless sold to a non-Chinese buyer, was unconstitutional and should be blocked.

The argument by the platform was unexpectedly supported in its effort to pause the ban by US president-elect Donald Trump, who filed an amicus brief asking the court for a halt on the ban so he could officially take office and “resolve” the dispute through “political means”.

“Shuttering the platform will silence the speech of petitioners and the more than 170 million monthly American users that communicate there about politics, arts, commerce, and other matters of public concern – as illustrated by the massive interest expressed during the recent presidential election,” TikTok argued in its filing.

It contended that “Congress targeted TikTok based on disagreement with the substance of the content posted by TikTok’s users and TikTok Inc’s alleged editorial choices in disseminating that content”.

In the filing, TikTok described itself as a US company, though it is owned by ByteDance, which was started in Beijing in 2012. According to TikTok, ByteDance was “founded by Chinese entrepreneurs, but today, roughly 60 per cent of the company is beneficially owned by global institutional investors”.

“Congress has no legitimate interest in disrupting the US operator of a US speech platform to alter editorial choices about the mix of content to disseminate – whether or not Congress deems some aspect of that content mix foreign propaganda,” the brief said.