Does the Federal Law Banning TikTok Unless It Is Sold Violate the First Amendment?
In April 2024, Congress passed and President Joe Biden signed into law the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act as part of a larger legislative package. The act required the Chinese company ByteDance to divest itself of the popular social media platform TikTok by Jan. 19, 2025, or the service would be banned in the United States. The law was the culmination of years of concern among some U.S. politicians that ownership of TikTok by a company with ties to the government of China, a foreign adversary, presented a national security threat. The Chinese, they alleged, could gather potentially damaging information on TikTok’s more than 170 million American users and alter the service’s algorithm to advance its national interests. In 2020, President Donald Trump issued an executive order to ban TikTok, but the directive was withdrawn after TikTok challenged it in court. TikTok also filed suit against the U.S. government after Congress passed the 2024 ban, alleging that the legislation infringed on the U.S.-based subsidiary’s First Amendment freedom of speech rights. The circuit court ruled against TikTok on Dec. 6, 2024. The company then appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which granted certiorari and an expedited review on Dec. 18. The following is excerpted from the Brief for Respondent as submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court on Dec. 27, 2024.
