Skeptical Supreme Court Justices Grill Tiktok In Extra Time

TikTok ran into a wave of skepticism Friday when it urged the Supreme Court to strike down a law that could end its presence in the U.S. in one of the most high-profile standoffs of the social media era.

The case pits national security against free speech, as the court grapples with whether Congress violated the First Amendment by passing the law last year that forces the sale of TikTok by its China-based owner ByteDance under the threat of a ban.

“You began by saying this is a U.S. company operating in the U.S., but the ultimate company that controls it ByteDance was found by Congress ‘to be subject to Chinese laws that require it assist or cooperate with the Chinese government’s intelligence work,’” Chief Justice John Roberts told TikTok’s lawyer Noel Francisco early on. “It seems to me that you’re ignoring the major concern here of Congress, which was Chinese manipulation of the content and acquisition and harvesting of the content.”

Francisco replied that TikTok’s U.S. operation is an American company with its own set of U.S. rights and disputed that ByteDance has ultimate control over the app.

Francisco served as solicitor general in Donald Trump’s first term in office. The president-elect has asked the Supreme Court to pause the ban’s Jan. 19 deadline to enable him to make a deal after he takes office a day later. Francisco echoed his call, saying in court that “we might be in a different world” once Trump is inaugurated.

The justices ran far over the 30 minutes allotted for questioning Francisco, ultimately taking more than an hour. Conservative and liberal justices alike appeared doubtful of TikTok’s claims.

Later in the hearing, Justice Amy Coney Barrett questioned TikTok on why divestiture would be impossible within the law’s time frame. Francisco had told the justices that even under any deadline, divestiture would be “exceedingly difficult.”

The court isn’t expected to immediately issue a ruling and the justices still have to take their turn at questioning the Justice Department, but these are early bad signs for TikTok.

TikTok and ByteDance escalated their fight with the Justice Department to the Supreme Court after losing in a lower court ruling that upheld the law as constitutional. The Biden administration and Congress pushed for a ban as the only viable solution to China’s potential to control TikTok and the threat that would pose to U.S. national security. They have warned that Beijing could access U.S. user data or covertly manipulate the app’s algorithm to spread propaganda. TikTok has denied the risks as exaggerated and unsupported by evidence.