after supreme court hear oral argument Regarding a law that could ban TikTok, it seems that one of its last possible lifelines is unlikely to save it from imminent removal.
Unless the Supreme Court blocks the law from taking effect before the January 19 deadline or its China-based parent company, ByteDance, ultimately agrees to sell it, TikTok will be banned in the US. TikTok's sale — and withdrawal — could happen after the deadline, and President-elect Donald Trump could get creative in trying not to enforce the law after he is sworn in the next day. But the longer it takes, the more unstable things will become on TikTok.
Matthew Shattenhelm, senior litigation analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, had given TikTok a 30 percent chance of winning at the Supreme Court before oral arguments, but he lowered that prediction to just 20 percent after hearing the justices' questioning. TikTok made a final appeal to the court to issue an administrative stay without ruling on the merits of the law, something Trump has suggested he could do to try to broker a sale of TikTok. Shattenhelm says that's unlikely – he adds, the court doesn't issue such a stay just because of a change in administration, and it's unlikely it would want to set that precedent.
A short order on the case may come by Friday afternoon after the judges' meeting. The court is also scheduled to issue an order Monday morning, though Shattenhelm cautioned not to read anything into it if nothing is released by then — it could mean they're laying out their reasoning in a lengthy written order. Are.
Trump has said he would like to save the app, and in theory, he could announce he would not enact divestment-or-sanctions legislation. But Justice Sonia Sotomayor pointed out that even if she chooses not to enforce the law, it may not provide enough protection for companies like Apple and Google — who imposed a $5,000 fine per user who accessed TikTok. Could be if they maintain it in their app store. U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Preloger said the statute of limitations is five years; Those companies will continue to violate the law as long as it remains on the books, and could face penalties even after Trump leaves office, if the next administration chooses to enforce it.
“I think those companies will be taking a huge risk by not complying with the law in the hope that President Trump won't enforce it against them,” says Shattenhelm. “You get stuck with hundreds of billions of dollars of potential liability. And even if President Trump is saying, 'Don't worry about it, I'm not going to enforce it against you,' do you really want to take the chance that he won't change his mind on this? Do you really want to give him that level of leverage over your company? “I doubt it.”
“I don't see any other social media company that is positioned in the same way as TikTok.”
Shattenhelm does not believe the ruling against TikTok would set a precedent that would threaten US-based social media companies. “I don’t see any other social media company that is similarly positioned as TikTok,” he says, explaining that the arguments have largely centered around ownership. Foreign-owned e-commerce companies that emerged, such as Shein and Teemu, may be a different story. But, he says, “None of these really stand out as imminent risks because of this logic alone.”
In contrast, Cornell University law professor and First Amendment expert Gautam Hans agrees that judges are unlikely to strike down the law, but he worries that such a decision could have broader implications for other companies. . During the debate, judges and lawyers for TikTok and its users held hypothetical discussions about whether banning certain types of corporate structure (such as ownership by a Chinese parent company) would allow backdoor speech rules – including Also includes a demand from the owner of the company to sell it. Punish it for protected speech. But these concerns did not prove to be a deal-breaker for the court.
“What is unfortunate is that the credibility with which many judges treated this law clearly reflects the right to free speech on less specified national security grounds,” Swan said in a statement. “I do not think the distinction on foreign and domestic ownership is stable enough to address my concerns that a decision upholding the TikTok ban creates a very slippery slope.”