Supreme Court to evaluate the constitutionality of the law banning TikTok

The Supreme Court will examine the law forcing ByteDance to sell TikTok to see if it is constitutional. However, the highest judicial body did not suspend the rule's entry into force, scheduled for Jan. 19, something also requested by the Chinese company.

ByteDance alleged that the rule, promulgated by Joe Biden in April and which would block TikTok from app stores, violates the First Amendment, while Congress and the government maintain that the platform is a tool used by the communist regime to spy on Americans and put national security at risk.

"Congress has passed an unprecedented and pervasive restriction on free speech," ByteDance argued in its brief sent to the Supreme Court and picked up by AFP. "This, in turn, will silence the voices of the many Americans who use the platform to communicate about politics, commerce, art and other matters of interest."

TikTok's parent filed a first appeal with a federal appeals court on Dec. 6, which was rejected, thereby upholding the law. Therefore, ByteDance decided to go a step further and appeal to the Supreme Court to try to prove that the rule is unconstitutional, considering it "mass censorship."

The legislation passed by Congress basically forces ByteDance to sell TikTok, which has some 170 million users in the country. Otherwise, it will be officially banned in the United States.

Trump-TikTok meeting

This decision comes the same week in which Donald Trump held a meeting at his Mar-a-Lago residence with Shou Chew, CEO of TikTok, who earlier contacted Elon Musk to facilitate that meeting with the president-elect.

In that dialogue, Chew told Trump that the law is unconstitutional, a viewpoint that is even shared by Musk. For his part, the president-elect confessed to having certain sympathy for the app. "You know, I have a warm spot in my heart for TikTok. ... I won youth by 34 points, and there are those that say that TikTok had something to do with it," he expressed.

During the election campaign, Trump promised to "save" the app. "For all of those who want to save TikTok in America, vote for Trump. The other side is closing it up, but I’m now a big star on TikTok," he said.