The United States Supreme Court on Friday upheld TikTok’s sell-or-ban law, rejecting an appeal from the popular app’s owners who said the ban violated the First Amendment.
The law will force TikTok’s Chinese owner to sell its US business by Sunday, or face a ban. The court issued an unsigned “per curiam” decision in the case, meaning the nine judges were unanimous in their decision.
The decision, which follows warnings from the Joe Biden administration that the program poses a major national security threat because of its ties to China, will allow the ban to begin on Sunday. However, many questions remain about how the ban will work because there is no precedent for the US government to block a major social media platform. How the government will actually implement this is not yet clear.
In its opinion, the Supreme Court acknowledged that for 170 million Americans, TikTok provides “a unique and expansive form of expression, means of communication and a source of community.”
But the high court said that Congress is focused on matters of national security, and that, the court said, is what determines how it considers the case.
“Congress has determined that divestiture is necessary to address its well-founded national security concerns about TikTok’s data collection practices and relationships with a foreign adversary,” the court wrote, according to a TikTok statement. CNN.
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