The Supreme Court announced on Wednesday that it will hear a challenge to a new law that would lead to the banning of video sharing site TikTok.
In the announcement, the Court said it would allocate two hours for oral argument on Friday, January 10, 2025. The ban is set to take effect on January 19, 2025.
TikTok has been seeking out other avenues to stop the implementation of the law and has been unsuccessful up until now.
TikTok’s fate in the U.S. appears to be hanging by a thread after a federal appeals court denied its plea to delay a law that will ban the widely popular app if it does not cut ties with its Chinese parent company ByteDance.
The law, which goes into effect on Jan. 19, gave ByteDance nine months to sell TikTok. Absent a sale, the app will be cut off from app stores and web-hosting services in the U.S. The law also gives the president the ability to grant a 90-day delay if a sale is in progress.
According to experts, TikTok has several pathways for avoiding a ban, most notably intervention from the Supreme Court or the incoming Trump administration declining to enforce it. Other options, like a last-minute sale or Congress deciding to repeal the law, appear less likely.
On Monday, TikTok asked the Supreme Court to temporarily pause the law, arguing the appeals court’s decision upholding it was “utterly antithetical to the First Amendment.”
“If the Act is allowed to take effect in January 2025 … this Court will lose its ability to grant applicants meaningful relief,” lawyers for TikTok and ByteDance wrote. “Even a temporary shutdown of TikTok will cause permanent harm to applicants — a representative group of Americans who use TikTok to speak, associate, and listen — as well as the public at large.”
President-elect Donald Trump also argued in favor of TikTok’s ability to operate in the United States. He met with the company’s CEO on Monday to discuss the matter.
Trump opposes the ban - despite supporting one during his first term - partly on the grounds that it could help Facebook, which he has accused of aiding his 2020 election loss.
Trump’s second term, however, won’t begin until he is inaugurated on 20 January, the day after the deadline set out in the law.
In its filing to the Supreme Court, submitted on Monday, TikTok asked for a “modest delay” to the enforcement of the ban to “create breathing room” for a review by the Court and to allow the incoming administration to “evaluate this matter”.
It described TikTok as “one of the most significant speech platforms” in the US and said the ban would do “immediate irreparable harm” to the company and its users.
During a recent press conference, he indicated he has “a warm spot” in his heart for the video sharing platform because it helped him win a significant portion of the youth vote in the 2024 election.
“We’ll take a look at TikTok. I have a warm spot in my heart for TikTok because I won Youth by 34 points. And there are those that say that TikTok has something to do with it.”
President-elect Trump on TikTok ban: "We'll take a look at TikTok. I have a warm spot in my heart for TikTok because I won youth by 34 points." pic.twitter.com/NNN0edUAqe
— CSPAN (@cspan) December 16, 2024
If the ban goes into effect, Americans will not be able to download it from app stores. Those who already have the app can still use it, but would not be able to update it, which means that eventually, it would become unusable.
However, those using a virtual private network (VPN) could still enjoy the app.
If the Supreme Court rules in TikTok’s favor, it could buy the company enough time for Trump and Republican lawmakers to work on potentially repealing the law.
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