The US Supreme Court on Friday (January 11) appeared likely to uphold a law that would ban short-video sharing app TikTok in the country on January 19 if ByteDance, the Chinese parent company doesn’t divest from the platform.
The case before the court, TikTok vs Garland, has potential to ban the platform that is used by millions of Americans
The lawyer representing TikTok argued before the court that banning TikTok would infringe freedom of expression of Americans.
US government has been taking hardline stance against TikTok and has been saying that the data of hundreds of Americans obtained by the Chinese company may be weaponised in the future.
“Are we supposed to ignore the fact that the ultimate parent of TikTok is doing intelligence work?” asked Chief Justice John Roberts to TikTok’s lawyer Noel Francisco. He was quoted by ABC News.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh said that concerns about data were “very strong”. He also said that the data can be used for ‘blackmail’.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett was skeptical that banning of app would amount to silencing people in the US.
“The law doesn’t say ‘shut down’ [TikTok],” Barrett said. “It says ByteDance must divest. If it did that we wouldn’t be here.”
