After its Supreme Court arguments, it seems like TikTok is headed for a ban
TikTok: Stopping Free Expression in the United States as a Signal of State-Dependent Government Suppression of Free Speech
TikTok claims its data collection practices and algorithms are not different from those found in leading U.S. social media apps. The legal team for TikTok argues that forcing them to close up shop in the U.S. is a sign of a government suppression of free speech.
If the court allows the ban to go forward, it will be the beginning of the end of technological innovation in the country.
Anyone can uninstall TikTok from their phones. It also doesn’t say TikTok should directly stop its services from working in the US. Instead, it effectively tries to throttle TikTok by making it harder to use over time and by stopping companies from providing services that help it to keep working and quickly loading videos.
The app’s estimated 170 million users in the U.S., the future of a multimillion-dollar social media website, and the clash of free expression with the threat China poses to nation’s security are all at stake.
There are also middle ground rulings that can be made. For instance, the Supreme Court could quibble with how the lower court reached its decision upholding the law and order the court to revise its opinion.
Now, if the court overturns the law, there is not much left for Trump to do. If the law is upheld by the high court, Trump can instruct his administration not to enforce it, as he works on a deal.
Trump wrote his brief as a private citizen while he was the president-elect. At the time, he did not hold any executive powers and he cited no legal authority in making his request.
Prelogar thinks that the law doesn’t reflect what Congress wants to set out in advance what kind of speech we should have. It’s about trying to shut off the vulnerability our foreign adversary nation could exploit.
Can TikTok Win or Not: The Importance of the Court’s Restriction on Trump’s Spectacular Role in Video Marketing?
Matthew claimed that TikTok could win at the Supreme Court if it chose, but after listening to the justices ask questions he decreased his predictions to just 20 percent. TikTok made a last-ditch effort to get the court to stay the law, which would allow Trump to broker a sale of the company. Schettenhelm says that’s unlikely — the court does not tend to issue that kind of pause just because of a change in administration, he adds, and it’s unlikely to want to set that precedent.
Other creators on the app are urging TikTokers to double down on competing video services like youtube’s shorts andinstagram’s Reels as a hedge against TikTok cratering in the US.
While such horse-trading remains speculative, national security experts in touch with Chinese regulators have told NPR that Chinese officials appear to be warming up to this possibility.
Any sale of technology which requires Beijing’s approval would need to be approved by China’s government.
“I think those companies would be undertaking enormous risk to not comply with the law on the hope that President Trump doesn’t enforce it against them,” Schettenhelm says. You get into a large amount of potential liability. Do you really want to take the chance that President Trump wouldn’t change his mind on that, if he said “don’t worry about it, I’ll not enforce it against you?” Do you really want to give him that level of leverage over your company? I doubt it.”
Living Outside the Screen: A Lifestyle Story of a Los Angeles Times-New York Times Founder, Lavelle Sasso, TikTok
There is a chance a short order on the case can be given as soon as Friday afternoon. If nothing is released by Monday, it might mean that the court is fleshing out its reasoning in a longer written order.
730,000 people find TheLavelleShow’s lifestyle content, which is about tips and tricks that ultimately center around my life, fascinating. In the last year he’s cashed in on brand partnerships with Whole Foods, Marriott, Taco Bell, and The Cheesecake Factory. He made a lot of money in just one year, and could quit his job as a hotel concierge. “It took me time to even accept like that’s what I am, and to publicly say, like, ‘Oh yeah, I’m an influencer,’” he tells me when we speak by Zoom. “I just never thought that’s where my career would ultimately take me.”
Lavelle never thought she would be on a screen. In 2019, he moved from Chicago to Los Angeles with plans of working behind the scenes in Hollywood. He met people at networking events. He tried his hand at screenwriting. He says that he never accepted that he could be successful in front of the camera. The success of the site was followed by another one in 2021, when it was joined by many people who were looking for an outlet during the first years of the epidemic. In a post from that May, he reviewed watermelon jerky from Trader Joe’s. “I’m gonna give it a gah boom bam,” he says enthusiastically in the video, which netted 1 million views overnight (it was a hot-button snack, as it turns out). The key was discovered at that time, and it was TikTok.
The TikTok Law and the Chinese Peculiarity of Judgment: What Do We Really Want to Learn from the First Amendment?
While many of the justices voiced concern over the law’s First Amendment threats, they also appeared amenable to the government’s argument that the law was more targeted toward severing TikTok’s connections with ByteDance than limiting its free-speech rights.
For more than five years, US officials have warned that TikTok has the potential to influence American perception of the Chinese government. In public interviews and congressional hearings, officials like FBI director Christopher Wray have also suggested that TikTok gathers US user data that the Chinese government could weaponize to surveil Americans online. TikTok has denied that it shares any US data with ByteDance or the Chinese government.
