Trump asked the highest American court to grant him time to “seek a political solution” after his inauguration scheduled for January 20.
The next US president said he has “the proven negotiating expertise, electoral mandate and political will to negotiate a solution to save the platform while addressing the national security concerns expressed by the government”.
Nearly 170 million Americans use TikTok, while a recent survey from the Pew Research Center showed that 17% of American adults consult the news on this platform, a jump of 500% compared to 2020.
In a letter to the Supreme Court, the current US administration said the short-form video platform poses “a serious threat to national security” by collecting “sensitive data on tens of millions of Americans”.
It also serves as a “powerful tool for covert influence operations carried out by a foreign adversary,” added government lawyer Elizabeth Prelogar.
For its part, the defense of the Chinese platform criticized American lawmakers for ignoring alternatives other than the ban.
“History and precedent teach that, even when national security is at stake, prohibitions on free speech must be Congress’s last resort,” the defense noted.
At the beginning of December, the District of Columbia Court of Appeal unanimously decided in favor of the constitutionality of this law which orders TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, to separate from its flagship application by January 19, 2025, under penalty to see the platform banned in the United States.
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