Will a new law sound the death knell for TikTok in the United States? From January 19, it will be prohibited to distribute the popular application on American soil. The day before Donald Trump arrives at the White House. A situation that does not please the future president: he asked the Supreme Court, already responsible for evaluating the constitutionality of the law, to postpone its entry into force.
Posted at 12:00 a.m.
“President Trump takes no position on the merits of this dispute,” his lawyer John Sauer – who is expected to become solicitor general at the Justice Department – writes in the motion.
But he asked the justices to grant a delay “to provide an opportunity for the future administration of President Trump to seek a political solution to this issue.” Specifying in passing that the president-elect has 14.7 million subscribers on the platform.
The law, passed by Congress last April in a bipartisan manner, prohibits the “distribution, maintenance, or provision of internet hosting services for an application controlled by a foreign adversary.”
The US government cites national security threats, saying the parent company of TikTokByteDance, is beholden to the Chinese government and can provide it with user data.
The company denies this, even if investigations, notably Forbesrevealed spying on journalists and mishandling of user data.
In Canada, the application is available, but the federal government ordered in November the closure of the offices of TikTok to the country due to “risks to national security”.
Supreme Court
Popular for its short videos and its powerful algorithm, capable of offering highly personalized content to its users, the network launched in 2017 has more than 1 billion followers worldwide and some 170 million subscribers on American soil.
To allow the application to remain downloadable in the United States, ByteDance would have to sell TikTok or that the Supreme Court agrees with his allegations that freedom of expression is violated by the new law. An appeals court has already ruled against this interpretation.
The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral arguments from the various parties on Friday.
Even if the law comes into force, those who downloaded TikTok in the United States will still have access to it, but without the possibility of making updates.
“I think the result of the ban will be that most people will leave TikTok because it will become less practical, and TikToklike most social media, depends on enough people using it,” says Alan Rozenshtein, a University of Minnesota law professor who specializes in the issue.
He believes that Donald Trump’s request to suspend the entry into force of the law has no legal basis, as the future president is still a private citizen today.
Turnaround
During his first term, Donald Trump himself attempted to ban TikTok in the United States, citing threats to national security.
He changed his mind. “All those who want to save TikTok in the United States, vote Trump! “, he wrote on his Truth Social network in September.
The law is “a very complicated problem” for the future administration, said James Lewis, an expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
He has people on his team who are very anti-China, very suspicious of China. And there are people who worry about free speech on social media, so Mr. Trump will have to work with that tension.
James Lewis, expert du Center for Strategic and International Studies
The conservatives behind Project 2025 are particularly concerned about the Chinese government. But Donald Trump also counts firm supporters of freedom at all costs among his supporters; Elon Musk, for example, opposes the law “even though it could be beneficial for [son réseau] X”, according to Forbes.
A major Republican donor, billionaire Jeff Yass, is also a major investor in ByteDance, the New York Times.
Risks
The app is particularly popular among young people. Users also launched a cry from the heart to defend TikTokhighlighting the potential financial impact for them of less accessibility to their content.
“When we talk to users about TikTokthey know that there is a risk that their data will be accessible to China, but that is not a big concern for them,” notes Mr. Lewis.
But the Chinese threat is real in the technological field, he adds. A few days ago, the US Treasury Department revealed that “Chinese state-sponsored” hackers had accessed documents.
« TikTok is not our biggest problem, believes Mr. Lewis. But he has become a symbol of a larger problem, and so it will be difficult for the president to reverse course. »
