American ban on TikTok: The Supreme Court seems favorable to the entry into force of the law

A clear majority of the judges of the American Supreme Court showed themselves on Friday willing to allow the entry into force of a law threatening an imminent ban on the very popular social network TikTok if its Chinese parent company refuses to sell it.

In the midst of a strategic confrontation between the United States and China, the American Congress adopted this law in April by a large bipartisan majority, bringing together elected Democrats and Republicans.

It aims to prevent the risks of espionage and manipulation by the Chinese authorities of TikTok users, which claims 170 million in the United States.

“Manipulate the Americans”

The law, immediately promulgated by President Joe Biden, sets a deadline of January 19 for the parent company of the social network, ByteDance, to transfer the application to another owner.

Supporters of the law “are concerned that the ideas that appear on TikTok could in the future, in some way, manipulate Americans, convince them to think what they should not think,” argued the social network lawyer, Noel Francisco.

“However, this conception is in conflict with the First Amendment” of the American Constitution guaranteeing freedom of expression, he said, criticizing legislators for not having considered less radical “alternative” solutions.

“A huge concern for the future of the country”

But several judges of the Court with a conservative majority objected to the imperatives of national security.

“Are we supposed to ignore the fact that the ultimate owner is subject to an obligation to perform intelligence work for the Chinese government?” asked Chief Justice John Roberts.

“Just in terms of data collection, this represents a huge concern for the future of the country,” also underlined another conservative judge, Brett Kavanaugh.

“A harm to the sovereignty of the United States”

“We know that the People’s Republic of China has a voracious appetite to get its hands on all possible information regarding Americans,” added Biden administration legal advisor Elizabeth Prelogar.

“There is harm to United States sovereignty if our foreign adversary can massively collect this data on nearly 170 million Americans,” she insisted.

The social network has repeatedly denied having transmitted information to the Chinese government and assured that it would refuse any request in this regard. He is demanding from the Court at least a suspension of the entry into force of the law.

“A dangerous precedent”

The date of the decision is not known, but as this is an emergency appeal, the Supreme Court should rule well before the end of its current session, at the end of June.

“Banning TikTok in this way creates a dangerous precedent that could pave the way for future state interventions against freedom of expression online,” reacted in a press release Yanni Chen, a lawyer from the NGO Free Press, who with two others, asked the Supreme Court to declare the law unconstitutional.

The company is also counting on the sympathy of President-elect Donald Trump, who will take office on January 20 and has confided his “weakness” for TikTok.

Donald Trump took over TikTok in December

Donald Trump, who received TikTok boss Shou Zi Chew in December at his residence in Mar-a-lago, Florida (southeast), in an unusual intervention asked the Court to suspend the law for him give time, once in the White House, to “seek a negotiated outcome that would avoid a nationwide shutdown of TikTok.”

However, Donald Trump himself tried in vain to ban TikTok in the summer of 2020, during his first term.

He has since changed his mind, calling on voters attached to the service to vote for him. The Republican sees TikTok as an alternative to Facebook and Instagram, Meta’s two platforms, which had temporarily excluded him after his support for the participants in the assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2021.

Resell your shares to non-Chinese investors

One of the solutions envisaged in the event of the law being maintained would be for ByteDance to resell its shares to non-Chinese investors, a possibility that the company has constantly rejected.

But several potential buyers have come forward, notably American billionaire Frank McCourt, who campaigns for safer social networks through his organization Liberty Project. He indicated on Thursday that he, with his partners, “presented a proposal to ByteDance” to buy TikTok in the United States.

The AFP, among more than fifteen fact-checking organizations, is paid by TikTok in several countries to verify videos potentially containing false information.

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