Some of the 170 million Americans who use TikTok to sell cookies, promote books by Black authors, comment on sports, advocate for sexual assault survivors and more say the stakes couldn’t be higher when the Supreme Court on Friday debates the fate of the wildly popular short-form video app.
The court has rarely, if ever, confronted a free speech case that matters to so many people, lawyers for TikTok content creators told the justices in a filing.
The TikTok users said they will lose the most powerful mechanism available to make their voices heard unless the high court blocks a federal law requiring TikTok break its ties with the Chinese government or be banned in the U.S. on Jan. 19.
Yet, court watchers are doubtful the justices will overturn a lower court’s decision upholding the law.
That unanimous ruling was made by judges appointed to the bench by both Republican and Democratic presidents. And their agreement across ideological lines echoes the law’s broad bipartisan support in Congress.
Plus, the national security justifications for the law are likely to be persuasive to the justices, said Gautam Hans, a Cornell Law School professor and associate director of the school’s First Amendment Clinic.
“They are fairly reluctant to second guess the decisions of the political branches on that weighty topic,” said Hans, who signed onto a brief supporting TikTok but isn’t optimistic the free speech concerns will win out.
The government warns that unless TikTok is divested from ByteDance, its Chinese-based parent company, China can gather data on Americans or manipulate the content on TikTok to shape U.S. opinion.
President-elect Donald Trump has muddied the executive and legislative branches’ united backing of the law by asking the court to pause it until he has a chance to find another solution after taking office on Jan. 20.
But legal experts, as well as the Justice Department – which encouraged the Supreme Court to ignore Trump’s request – said the president-elect doesn’t have a persuasive legal argument for putting the law on hold.