The U.S. Supreme Court refused to rescue TikTok on Friday (January 17, 2025) from a law that required the popular short-video app to be sold by its Chinese parent company ByteDance or banned on Sunday (January 19, 2025) in the United States on national security grounds — a major blow to a platform used by nearly half of all Americans.
TikTok challenged the legislation in court, arguing it would violate free speech protections for the more than 170 million users it says it has in the US.
The nation’s highest court rejected this claim unanimously, meaning TikTok must now find an approved buyer for the US version of the app or face removal from app stores and web hosting services.
The court decision comes against a backdrop of unusual political agitation by Trump, who vowed that he could negotiate a solution after he takes office, and the administration of President Joe Biden, which has signaled it won’t enforce the law beginning Sunday, his final full day in office. Now, tech observers — and some users — are intently watching to see what happens over the weekend and beyond.
The Biden administration has expressed concerns about TikTok’s data collection practices and its relationship with the Chinese government several times. Biden had signed a bipartisan TikTok bill, which gave Chinese parent company, ByteDance, six months to sell its controlling stake or be blocked in the US. This is yet to happen.
Though the Supreme Court on Friday unanimously upheld a federal law that could ban TikTok nationwide, it’s unclear how a shutdown of the popular social media platform will play out and what Americans will see when the clock strikes midnight on Sunday.
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