The US supreme court has allowed to go into effect a law that will force TikTok’s Chinese owner to sell its US business by Sunday, or face a ban.
Supreme court cites national security concerns, TikTok's relationship with 'foreign adversary' for decision.
TikTok’s attorneys had argued that the first amendment should have protected the social media app from Congress’s legislation that will impose a ban unless its Chinese owner divests.
But the supreme court disagreed, writing that Congress has legitimate concerns with TikTok, and the power to deal with them
Congress has addressed national security concerns regarding TikTok’s data collection practices and relationship with a foreign adversary.
For the foregoing reasons, we conclude that the challenged provisions do not violate petitioners’ first amendment rights.
However, President Joe Biden has said he will not enforce the ban for the few remaining hours he is in office, leaving it up to Donald Trump to decide what to do when he enters the White House on Monday.
TikTok's owners Bytedance have repeatedly said they won't sell the app - if they did, it would stop the ban coming into force.
President-elect Trump also tried to get the ban delayed, so he could make a decision on it once he was in office.
But, the Supreme Court has decided to stick with the original ban.
Now, one day before Donald Trump returns to the White House, the social media app used by 170 million Americans will be banned.
Although there are a lot of American TikTok users, more than 1.5 billion people use TikTok worldwide, so the company could well decide it can manage without its US influencers.
If Donald Trump decides to enforce the ban, there could be a slow, painful death for TikTok in the US, where companies like Apple and Google take it off their app stores.
That will mean no new users can download the app and there won't be any updates.
