We’re now closing this blog. You can read our full report here:
There were a small number of protesters outside the supreme court while justices heard arguments in the case. Here are some of the images on the news wires:
Justices appear skeptical of TikTok's arguments: summary of the day
The supreme court heard from lawyers representing TikTok, video creators and the US government on Friday regarding a looming ban of the social media app. TikTok argued that a ban or forced sale amounts to a violation of free speech, while the government said TikTok could be manipulated by the Chinese government to harm Americans.
The justices peppered the lawyers with questions, with TikTok notably getting far more questions than the US government – indicating skepticism from the court.
In his final statement, Noel Francisco, TikTok’s lawyer, implored the justices to enter an administrative stay or a preliminary injunction on the ban, which is slated to go into effect on 19 January.
The justices are expected to rule quickly.
Here’s the highlights of the oral arguments:
TikTok’s lawyer started his opening statement by telling the Supreme Court that the law isn’t really about a national security threat, “the government’s real target, rather, is the speech itself.”
Justice Sonia Sotomayor said if the US government perceives a threat, it should be able to act on that: “We have a right to say you can’t do that, you can’t speak.”
TikTok’s lawyer said if the supreme court doesn’t act, TikTok will “go dark” on 19 January. He said that Donald Trump could intervene once he comes into office on January 20. “It is possible come January 21, 22, we’re in a different world,” he said.
A lawyer for TikTok content creators told the justices that a ban is tantamount to violating their first amendment rights. The justices followed with a line of questioning that indicated national security harms could outweigh those rights.
The US government laid out its case honing in on the national security threat, saying in its opening statement that “The Chinese government could weaponize TikTok at any time to harm the United States”.
Justice Elena Kagan poked holes in the government’s arguments, saying any social media platform could be prone to manipulation. “They’re all black boxes,” she said.
The US government maintains that TikTok could remain the same if it sold to a non-Chinese company, but that “foreign adversaries are not willing give up control”. Justice Amy Coney Barrett questioned Francisco as to why ByteDance has refused to sell. He answered that it would be impossible to recreate the app without the resources and existing teams of ByteDance.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh asked the government lawyer if Trump could choose not to enforce the law once he’s sworn into office. “The president has enforcement discretion,” the lawyer said, though she added that it would be concerning if he chose to do so.
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'Could the president say that we’re not going to enforce this law?'
Justice Brett Kavanaugh posed a question that has hovered over this case since Trump was elected. Though Congress passed the legislation forcing the ban or sale of TikTok with a bipartisan majority, Trump may direct the Justice Department to take a light approach towards pushing ByteDance towards either outcome. He has filed a request with the court to stay the ban, set to take effect 19 January, at least until he takes office the next day. Trump originated the idea of a US TikTok ban, but he found a large audience there during the 2024 election. Now he favors it and stands against a ban, which he sees as an achievement by Biden.
“Could the president say that we’re not going to enforce this law?” asked Kavanaugh.
US solicitor general Elizabeth Prelogar responded, “The president has enforcement discretion.” She went on to answer that third-party service providers such as Apple and Google, whose app stores control access to TikTok, may decide not to keep it available even if Trump directs the justice department towards non-enforcement, deeming the app too much of a risk. The app’s disappearance could in turn prompt TikTok and ByteDance to take the possibility of a sale seriously, Prelogar said.
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A sale of TikTok would stop the ban. The US government said that if ByteDance divests from TikTok, it could save the app. But, “foreign adversaries are not willing give up contro”, US solicitor general Elizabeth Prelogar told the justices. She said requiring divestiture is something that has precedent in the US.
“Divestiture follows a long line of barring foreign control of US communications channels and critical infrastructure,” Preloger said. “No matter what level of First Amendment scrutiny applies, this act is valid because it is tailored to address compelling national security threats.”
TikTok has repeatedly said it cannot be sold from ByteDance. Nonetheless, there are a few potential buyers, including billionaire businessman Frank McCourt, a former owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team. He’s said he secured $20bn in verbal commitments from a consortium of investors to bid for TikTok. McCourt has not yet spoken with ByteDance, making a sale a far-off possibility.
The ban on TikTok could be delayed by three months if TikTok shows it’s working on a sale. Justice Samuel Alito asked Prelogar if a divestiture would reverse that if TikTok goes dark on 19 January.
“There’s nothing permanent or irrevocable that happens on January 19,” Prelogar said.
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TikTok could stay the same if it just sold to a non-Chinese company, US says
If TikTok wants to avoid an outright ban, parent company ByteDance has the option to sell it to another business that is not based in China and therefore under government control there. According to US solicitor general Elizabeth Prelogar, the app could function the exact same way under new ownership, and the US government would have no problem with it.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson asked, “Isn’t the whole point of the divestiture requirement that the content on TikTok would be different if it was owned by a different company?”
Prelogar said, “There is nothing in the act that would directly dictate any different mix of content on TikTok. The US subsidiary could use the same algorithm, show the same content, by the same users in exactly the same order. It’s not about trying to interfere with the US subsidiary’s exercise of editorial judgment.”
Justice Elena Kagan cracked a joke about the court’s tech savvy, as she has before
Kagan asked US solicitor general Elizabeth Prelogar about the government’s contention that China could engage in “covert content manipulation” of Americans via TikTok: “What do you mean by ‘covert’, though, with regards to content manipulation? Does ‘covert’ it’s hard to figure out how the algorithm works? We could say that about any algorithm.”
She said of social media’s recommendation algorithms, “They’re all black boxes… On X, on Facebook, what are the new ones, Bluesky? You get what you get, and you think, ‘That’s puzzling.’”
During a case in 2013, Kagan said that supreme court justices still communicated via paper memos.
“The justices are not necessarily the most technologically sophisticated people,” she quipped. “The court hasn’t really ‘gotten to’ email.”
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The US government says TikTok is hands-down a national security threat. During opening arguments, US Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar said the “Chinese government could weaponize TikTok at any time.” She said that means TikTok could be “covertly” used for harassment, recruitment and espionage.
“The PRC can be pulling the strings here,” Prelogar said.
The justices launched a line of questioning about the use of the word “covert” and asked Prelogar if she was just using that word because China is involved.
“Everybody now knows that China is behind it,” Justice Elena Kagan said, which brought laughs from the crowd.
Kagan said any social media platform could be manipulated; and the public doesn’t know how any of these companies may be pulling the strings. The same could be said for Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.
“It’s all a bit of a black box… they’re all black boxes,” Kagan said. “I just don’t get what this ‘covert’ word does for you.”
The US government makes its case for banning TikTok
TikTok’s time for oral arguments before the US Supreme Court has ended. Now it’s time for the US government to make its case for ByteDance to either sell the popular app to a non-Chinese parent company or cut off access to it altogether in the US.
Elizabeth Prelogar, US Solicitor General, said in her opening statement, “The Chinese government could weaponize TikTok at any time to harm the United States.”
She continued, “The Chinese government’s control of TikTok poses a grave threat to national security. No one disputes that the PRC seeks to undermine US interests by amassing vast quantities of sensitive data on Americans and by engaging in covert influence operations. No one disputes that the PRC pursues those goals by compelling companies like ByteDance to secretly turn over data and carry out PRC directives.”
The fact that ByteDance owns TikTok is central to this case. The justices brought up hypothetical situations describing a world where TikTok doesn’t exist and creators can only publish videos directly to Chinese-owned ByteDance. The justices asked the creators’ lawyer, Jeffrey Fisher, if that would change the situation.
Fisher said it’s unusual for the government to choose what entity should be the proper owner of a speech platform in the US. In that case, “Americans have no right to make documentaries with the BBC, they can’t work with Al Jazeera.” You can’t tell creators to just go publish somewhere else, he said.
Justice Elena Kagan took issue with this line of argument, saying that equates foreign corporations having the same first amendment rights as US creators.
Content creators say banning TikTok is tantamount to violating their first amendment rights.
The justices are now hearing from a lawyer representing influencer Brian Firebaugh and a handful of other content creators. Firebaugh is a rancher and US Marine Corps veteran, who uses TikTok to talk about agricultural issues and the ranching community.
“The government doesn’t just get to come in and say ‘national security’ and it’s over,” said Jeffrey Fisher, lawyer for Firebaugh and the other creators. “You have to say what is the real harm.”
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said there are real harms that can happen on TikTok. She referenced an earlier line of questioning from Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s saying TikTok could covertly manipulate the data of US citizens. That manipulation, the justices said, could lead to blackmail and turning government workers and others into spies.
Fisher contended that is a different topic, “data security is different than content manipulation,” he said.
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Amy Coney Barrett asks why ByteDance won’t sell
The law that led to these arguments before the US Supreme Court holds that ByteDance must either sell TikTok to a non-Chinese owner or curtail access to the app in the US. TikTok has said divestment is “not possible technologically, commercially, or legally”. Beijing has indicated it would not approve such a sale.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett asked TikTok’s lawyer Noel Francisco why ByteDance is so stubbornly refusing to sell: “You keep saying shut down. The law doesn’t say TikTok has to shut down. It says ByteDance has to divest. If ByteDance divested TikTok, we wouldn’t be here, right? If ByteDance was willing to let you go, and willing to let you take the source code with you, wouldn’t that be fine?… Why is it impossible to divest in the 270 days, even assuming the Chinese government hadn’t said you couldn’t?” The law requires divestiture within that timeframe.
Francisco answered, “There are two basic reasons. The first is that the underlying source code takes a team of engineers to create and maintain. It would take us many years to reconstruct a brand new team of engineers to do that. With respect to the sharing of content—in theory, we could send our salesmen around the world to re-sign up all of our users to a new platform.”
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The deadline for TikTok to sell or divest is January 19.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh asked TikTok’s lawyer what happens that day if the law is upheld.
“At least as I understand it, we go dark,” Noel Francisco, TikTok’s lawyer said. He said TikTok won’t be available in the app stores. That means the app won’t be available for downloads or updates.
“It essentially is going to stop operating,” he said. “A short reprieve here would make all the sense in the world.”
Francisco brought up the possibility of Donald Trump intervening to halt the ban. Trump will be inaugurated one day after the ban is slated to go into effect.
“It is possible come January 21, 22, we’re in a different world,” Francisco said.
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How will TikTok users be affected if the app is banned?
TikTok’s 170 million users in the US will likely still be able to use the app after a ban goes into effect because it is already downloaded on their phones, experts say. But over time, without software and security updates, the app will become unusable.
Some users have begun posting TikTok videos instructing others on how to use virtual private networks (VPNs), which mask an internet user’s location, as a way to circumvent the possible ban.
Content creators who have built businesses from their TikTok followings are preparing for the worst. Nadya Okamoto, who has 4.1 million followers and founded August, a menstrual products brand, said TikTok helped her business grow organically through viral videos. A TikTok ban could force her and other small businesses to spend more on marketing and raise their costs.
“It’s very stressful,” she said. “If TikTok goes away, we’ll be OK, but it is going to be a hard hit.”
The Supreme Court justices explored whether TikTok -- as a corporation -- should have the freedom of speech.
Chief Justice John Roberts questioned the idea that the ownership of TikTok is directly related to “expressive conduct” and free speech. He said that it may affect the speech of third parties, but he’s not certain it affects the company’s free speech.
Noel Francisco, TikTok’s lawyer, responded, “I’m not sure I know of a time when the government has tried to shut down a speech platform.”
Justice Samuel Alito posed a hypothetical to Francisco, asking if he thought there would be a first amendment issue if a company was “gathering an arsenal of information from US citizens.” Francisco maintained it would still be a first amendment problem.
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TikTok maintains it is not controlled by the Chinese government. It’s parent company, ByteDance, is based in China, but TikTok operates separately with headquarters in Singapore and the US. TikTok says its user data in the US is handled by the company Oracle.
Justice Samuel Alito asked TikTok’s lawyer if the company was owned directly by the Chinese government would he make the same arguments.
“I wouldn’t make the same argument,” Noel Francisco, TikTok’s lawyer said, reiterating that TikTok is independent from ByteDance.
When the judges asked Francisco if TikTok can change the app’s recommendation algorithm, he said, “The fact is that TikTok US has authority over the algorithm.” He added that TikTok hasn’t removed or restricted content at the request of China, or any other government.
Lawyers for the US government have argued that TikTok has no choice whether to use ByteDance’s algorithm, which, by virtue of the parent company’s headquarters’ location in Beijing, is under Chinese government control.
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The judges immediately started in with questions regarding free speech. Justice Clarence Thomas was the first up asking TikTok’s lawyer, “What is TikTok’s speech here?”
Noel Francisco, TikTok’s lawyer, compared TikTok to the Washington Post and other newspapers and how those publications have the right to freedom of speech, despite having private and sometimes foreign owners, as with Politico and its German parent Axel Springer. The main thrust of TikTok’s stance in this case is that a ban or forced sale would amount to a violation of free speech for the tens of millions of people who use the app in the US.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor followed that line of questioning and asked Francisco if he thought the US government should be able to have the self-interest to say when there is a threat.
“We have a right to say you can’t do that, you can’t speak,” Sotomayor said.
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Supreme court begins to hear arguments in TikTok case
Arguments have begun at the supreme court. First up is Noel Francisco, TikTok’s lawyer, who’s arguing that the US should halt the ban. He’s trying to convince the judges that the law passed by Congress last spring infringes on TikTok’s freedom of speech.
Francisco said this isn’t about TikTok being a national security threat, but instead “the government’s real target, rather, is the speech itself.” He concluded his short opening statement saying, “In short this act should not stand.”
Justices are now questioning him about the merits of his argument that the ban-or-sale bill infringes on both the free speech rights of TikTok and its American users.
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Could Donald Trump stop the TikTok ban?
Trump has filed a request with the Supreme Court to delay the implementation of a ban on TikTok until he takes office on 20 January, which the court declined to immediately act on. The president-elect’s intervention shows the significant effort by TikTok to forge inroads with Trump and his team during the presidential campaign.
“President Trump takes no position on the underlying merits of this dispute,” said D John Sauer, Trump’s lawyer who is also the president-elect’s pick for US solicitor general.
“Instead, he respectfully requests that the Court consider staying the Act’s deadline for divestment of January 19, 2025, while it considers the merits of this case, thus permitting President Trump’s incoming administration the opportunity to pursue a political resolution of the questions at issue in the case,” he added.
As president, it will be up to Trump to interpret how the ban-or-sale bill is enforced. If the law is upheld, he could weaken it by directing the US Justice Department to delay exacting penalties or broker a deal that he declares meets the threshold for divestment. The Cato Institute, a right-wing thinktank in Washington, DC, said in an analysis on the subject: “A new administration could approve ‘qualified divestments’ or also informally extend the timeline by declining to enforce the penalties under the ban if a sale did not occur by January 19 or an extended deadline.”
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Less than two weeks after the federal appeals court ruling, TikTok filed an emergency motion asking the supreme court to halt the enforcement of the law. The supreme court agreed to review the request and expedited oral arguments. The court has since received nearly two dozen amicus briefs, or “friend of the court” briefs, from both sides of the debate.
The most notable of those was filed by Donald Trump himself. He asked the court to pause the ban, which is scheduled to go into effect one day before his inauguration, so that his administration could “pursue a negotiated resolution”.
“President Trump alone possesses the consummate dealmaking expertise, the electoral mandate, and the political will to negotiate a resolution to save the platform,” reads the brief. “Such a resolution would obviate the need for this Court to decide extremely difficult questions.”
Shortly after Joe Biden signed the act into law, TikTok sued the US government in an attempt to block it. The company argued the ban is unconstitutional, unfairly singles out TikTok, and violates the first amendment and the right to free speech.
The law “will force a shutdown of TikTok … silencing the 170 million Americans who use the platform to communicate in ways that cannot be replicated elsewhere”, TikTok wrote in its complaint.
A three-judge panel for the US court of appeals for the District of Columbia ruled in favor of the government last month. They said the possible threat to US national security outweighed people’s loss of access to the social media site.
The judges also said the first amendment is to protect free speech for people in the US and “the Government acted solely to protect that freedom from a foreign adversary nation”.
What will happen to the TikTok app if it gets banned?
New users will not be able to download TikTok from app stores and existing users will not be able to update the app, because the law prohibits any entity from facilitating the download or maintenance of the TikTok application. In a 13 December letter, US lawmakers told Apple and Alphabet’s Google, which operate the two main mobile app stores, that they must be ready to remove TikTok from their stores on 19 January.
Cloud service provider Oracle could see some disruption to its work with TikTok. Oracle hosts TikTok’s US user data on its servers, reviews the app’s source code and delivers the app to the app stores. Google declined to comment, while Oracle and Apple did not respond to requests for comment.
The federal law to ban TikTok overwhelmingly passed the Senate and House last April. It came a year after Montana was the first state to ban TikTok, although a judge blocked that law on free speech grounds.
The law, known as the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, was signed by Joe Biden last spring. It came two years after the president banned TikTok on federal government phones and laptops.
The US government has consistently said TikTok is a national security threat. Lawmakers say that China has the potential to control what people see on the app and spread propaganda. They also fear China could gain access to Americans’ sensitive data and monitor their behavior.
“Your platform is basically an espionage platform for the Chinese Communist party,” said Josh Hawley, a Republican senator from Missouri, during a Senate judiciary committee hearing last January with TikTok’s CEO, Shou Chew.
To date, the US government has not disclosed evidence that Beijing or ByteDance has used TikTok to manipulate Americans.
TikTok has 170 million US users on its platform, about half of the country’s population, and the prospect of banning the app has brought together unlikely allies. On one side are those who herald the ban, saying TikTok has the potential to be manipulated by the Chinese Communist party, which includes a bipartisan coalition of Congress members.
On the other side are countless influencers, civil liberties groups and, more recently, Donald Trump, who first proposed banning TikTok nearly five years ago. Now, Trump and others say prohibiting Americans from accessing the app would violate the free speech of tens of millions of people.
“The government’s attempt to cut US users off from speaking and sharing on TikTok is extraordinary and unprecedented,” said Patrick Toomey, deputy director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Security Project.
US supreme court to hear arguments over sale-or-ban TikTok law
The US supreme court will hear oral arguments over the fate of TikTok on Friday. It’s the latest battle in the long war over whether to ban the tremendously popular social media app in the US – and will force the justices to weigh the importance of national security with the freedom of speech.
TikTok and its parent company, Chinese-based ByteDance, asked the supreme court to review the case after a lower court ruled last month to uphold a law to ban the app in the US. That ban is scheduled to go into effect on 19 January, unless ByteDance sells TikTok’s assets to a non-Chinese company. While ByteDance has the option to divest, it claimed in a legal filing that divestiture “is simply not possible: not commercially, not technologically, not legally”.
Oral arguments are expected to last two hours, during which each side will be allotted time to make their case. In a filing, the court wrote that both sides should be prepared to argue whether the ban violates the first amendment.
We will bring you all the latest from the hearing, set to start at 10am ET.
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