Caixin News Agency, January 10th (Editor Xiaoxiang) Tonight, TikTok's fate in the United States may reach a critical moment
According to the schedule, at 10:am Eastern Time on January 10th (11pm Beijing Time tonight), the US Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on whether the "no sell, no ban" law against TikTok violates the First Amendment of the US Constitution.
The oral argument is between TikTok and the US Department of Justice, and TikTok will have the opportunity to present its final defense in the US Supreme Court.
Last April, the US Congress passed a law requiring TikTok's parent company, ByteDance, to spin off this app on the grounds of so-called national security, otherwise this app would be banned from entering the US mobile app store and network hosting platform. TikTok subsequently sued the US Department of Justice, arguing that the "ban if you don't sell" law violated the US Constitution's protection of freedom of speech. But last month, the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the ban.
This prompted TikTok to ultimately submit the case to the Supreme Court. On December 18th local time, the US Supreme Court announced another discussion on the bill to ban TikTok from operating in the United States. The relevant debate has been scheduled for today (January 10th).
TikTok's lawyers have previously urged the Supreme Court to overturn the imminent ban, citing that it would stifle the freedom of speech of the platform's over 170 million American users.
In response to the claim of "security threats," TikTok also refutes that its content recommendation engine and user data are stored on cloud servers operated by Oracle in the United States, and that content review decisions that affect American users are made in the United States. The security concerns of the US government are too vague, with too many assumptions to justify actions that violate their rights.
It is worth mentioning that just before the Supreme Court's final ruling, the American consortium's attempt to acquire TikTok's "heart" under coercion still did not die.
Project Libert, the Internet advocacy organization of Frank McCourt, an American real estate tycoon, and its partner consortium in The People's Bid said on Thursday that they had submitted a proposal to ByteDance to acquire TikTok's US assets, hoping to reorganize the business into a platform owned by the United States and give priority to users' data security.
However, ByteDance has explicitly refused to sell TikTok many times before.
TikTok's fate is about to be revealed
From the current situation, the final ruling of the US Supreme Court will inevitably bring about three outcomes:
① TikTok won the lawsuit. TikTok is exempt from being banned in the United States;
② The Supreme Court has ruled to postpone the execution. The TikTok issue may be postponed until Trump takes office to make a decision;
③ TikTok lost the lawsuit. TikTok was banned on January 19th, the day before Trump took office.
And currently, a variable in TikTok's fate may still be whether Trump's previous request to the US Supreme Court can be effective. Trump submitted a request to the US Supreme Court at the end of last month to temporarily suspend the TikTok forced sale order and expressed the hope that the court would give him time to resolve the issue through political means after he officially takes office on January 20 next year.
Trump once said that the Supreme Court should allow an extension of the deadline, otherwise it would weaken his ability to implement foreign policy after taking office. He also worried about the impact of this move on TikTok users and the possibility of creating a dangerous precedent for Internet regulation.
So, if TikTok is unfortunately banned on January 19th, will American users still be able to use TikTok?
Legal experts have stated that the relevant "ban if not sold" laws do not completely prohibit the use of TikTok, but require Apple and Google to remove TikTok from their app stores before January 19th. Those who have not yet installed TikTok on their phones or tablets will not be able to download from these app stores. The bill also prohibits U.S. Internet hosting services and data storage providers from supporting the application.
As a result, TikTok applications may not suddenly disappear from American mobile phones and tablets. The installed applications may still be available in the short term, but they are expected to die out gradually with the gradual loss of functions, because once they are removed from the Apple and Google app stores, ByteDance will not be able to arrange software upgrades in common channels.
Meanwhile, if the Supreme Court allows the ban to take effect as planned, the options left for Trump to change TikTok's fate in the United States will be limited. Trump can refuse to enforce the ban or push Congress to pass new legislation to lift it. But even with Trump's assurance, there is still a risk for Google and Apple to relist TikTok if the law remains in effect. The broad support of Congress for the ban also makes the possibility of legislative resolution very small.
(Caixin Xiaoxiang)
Hope the TikTok will welcome a better and brighter result for its development in United States.
And we also will be very full of enthusiasm about providing more high quality and brilliant camera module applications for making TikTok to develop into a higher level media in society.
