(Finance) – The United States Supreme Court ha confirmed a law which threatens to shut down the popular social media platform TikTok in the country starting Sunday 19 January, rejecting the company’s appeal which claimed there was a violation of free speech rights. US Congressional law requires ByteDance, the Chinese company that controls TikTok, to sell the app or be banned from the US.
“There is no question that, for more than 170 million Americans, TikTok offers a distinctive and expansive outlet for expression, a means of engagement, and a source of community,” the ruling reads. “But Congress has determined that the is necessary to address its well-supported national security concerns regarding TikTok’s data collection practices and relationship with a foreign adversary.” The Court concluded that the contested provisions they do not violate First Amendment rights of the appellants.
Starting January 19, the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act will make it illegal for companies in the United States to provide services to distribute, maintain or update the social media platform TikTok, unless US management of the platform is separated from Chinese control.
Since its launch in 2017, the platform has accumulated over 170 million users in the United States and more than a billion worldwide. In 2023, U.S. TikTok users uploaded more than 5.5 billion videos, which in turn were viewed more than 13 trillion times worldwide.
TikTok is operated in the United States by TikTok Inc., an American company based in California. TikTok Inc.’s parent company is ByteDance Ltd., a privately held company that has operations in China. ByteDance Ltd. owns TikTok’s proprietary algorithm, developed and operated in China. The company is also responsible for developing parts of the source code that runs the TikTok platform. ByteDance Ltd. is subject to Chinese laws which require it to “assist or cooperate” with the Chinese government’s “intelligence work” and to ensure that the Chinese government has “the power to access and control private data” that the company holds.
Court notes that preventing China from collecting large amounts of sensitive data from 170 million US TikTok users is a provision “decidedly agnostic with respect to the content“, as it “does not reference the content of the speech on TikTok or reflect a disagreement with the message that speech conveys.”