Washington — The Supreme Court on Friday… declined a challenge A new law requires TikTok to either sever ties with its China-based parent company or be banned in the United States after finding it has not violated the First Amendment rights of the platform or its users.
of the High Court unsigned decision The law, passed last April, is set to take effect at midnight on Sunday, and follows concerns raised for years by the federal government during both the Trump and Biden administrations about the threats TikTok poses to national security. Used to be.
In defending the law before the Supreme Court, the Justice Department pointed to two main national security justifications: China's ability to collect data from TikTok's 170 million US users and the content on the app to further its geopolitical interests. To oppose its perceived ability to manipulate.
The Supreme Court's unanimous decision hinged on the first justification: that China, through the app and its parent company, Beijing-based ByteDance, could collect vast amounts of information from American users. The justices found that Congress did not violate the First Amendment by taking action to combat that threat.
What did the Supreme Court say in its decision on TikTok ban?
“The Act's prohibition and divestiture requirement are designed to prevent China – a designated foreign competitor – from leveraging its control over ByteDance Ltd. to capture the personal data of US TikTok users. qualifies as a significant government interest under the Constitution,” the court said, referring to the middle standard applied by courts to assess the constitutionality of a law.
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Under intermediate scrutiny, a challenged law must promote a significant government interest and be substantially related to maintaining that interest. It is a less demanding standard than strict scrutiny, the highest level of judicial review, and more stringent than rational-basis review, the lowest, most lenient level.
The court said TikTok “collects extensive personal information from and about its users,” including location data and contact lists. The judges reiterated the government's concerns that such information could allow China to track the locations of federal employees, document information for blackmail and conduct corporate espionage.
The court opinion also cited Congress's finding that under Chinese law, companies can be required to hand over data to the Chinese government.
“The government had good reason to single out TikTok,” it said.
The court further said that the law, called the Protecting Americans from Foreign Enemy Controlled Applications Act, seeks to “address the government's interest in preventing a foreign adversary from collecting large amounts of sensitive data about 170 million American individuals.” Adequately prepared for.” TikTok.”
Its provisions “clearly serve the government's data collection interest,” the court said, and are no broader than necessary to address concerns about China's access to Americans' personal information.
The court noted the government's interest in preventing China from taking control of TikTok's powerful recommendation algorithm and its ability to covertly alter the content displayed on the app for users in the U.S., but it said the record in the case “supports this conclusion.” Sufficiently supports that Congress would “pass challenging provisions based on the justification for data collection alone.”
According to Congress and the Biden administration, the court said, ByteDance uses data collected from TikTok to train the app's recommendation algorithms and will not agree to stop collecting US users' data or sending it to China. . The government also noted challenges in monitoring data-sharing between TikTok and its parent company.
The court said, “In the circumstances, we find the government's justification for data collection sufficient to sustain the challenged provisions.”
Justice Neil Gorsuch issued a separate opinion agreeing with the outcome of the case, but disagreeing with the court's legal reasoning. He wrote that the court was right to refrain from supporting the government's goal of stopping China's alleged secret manipulation of materials.
He wrote, “One man's 'secret material manipulation' is another's 'editorial discretion'.” “Journalists, publishers and speakers of all kinds routinely make less-than-transparent decisions about what stories to tell and how to tell them. Without question, the First Amendment says a lot about the right to make those choices “
Gorsuch concluded his opinion by saying “It's one thing to side with and speak on behalf of a foreign adversary. It's another thing to allow a foreign adversary to spy on Americans.”
According to the law in question, TikTok will either have to separate from ByteDance or be separated from the US app store and hosting services from January 19. President-elect Donald Trump, who will be sworn in for a second term on January 20. Was requested the court After taking office he paused implementation of the law to allow a “political resolution” to be pursued, but after the decision he said he should have “time to review the situation.”
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the Biden administration would not begin enforcing the law starting Sunday, leaving it to the incoming Trump administration.
“President Biden's position on TikTok has been clear for many months, including Congress sending a bill to the President's desk in overwhelming, bipartisan fashion: TikTok must remain available to Americans, but only through U.S. ownership or other ownership. “Given the factual circumstances of the timing, this Administration believes that action to implement the law should be up to the next administration,” she said. , which on Monday Will take charge.”
It's still unclear what will happen to TikTok when Sunday's deadline approaches.
In a statement provided to CBS News on Friday evening, TikTok said that “the statements issued today by both the Biden White House and the Justice Department fail to provide the necessary clarity and assurances to service providers who are required to maintain the availability of TikTok.” Are integral parts.” More than 170 million Americans. Unless the Biden administration immediately provides a definitive statement to satisfy the most important service providers assuring non-enforcement, TikTok will unfortunately be forced to go dark on January 19.