TikTok plea live: Supreme Court hears arguments with TikTok ban looming – BBC.com
Lawyers for TikTok and content creators on the platform have argued before the Supreme Court that a law to possibly ban the social media site violates the free speech of its some 170 million American usersThe representative for content creators said they should have the right to “work with the publishers of their choice”But a lawyer for the US government argued that TikTok poses a “grave threat” to national security because of risks posed by ties between the site’s parent company, ByteDance, and China The nine justices are expected to rule on the case in the coming daysThe law, passed by Congress last year, requires ByteDance to sell TikTok in the US or cease operations on 19 JanuaryThat is one day before President-elect Donald Trump, who has opposed the ban, returns to the White HouseThis video can not be playedWatch: Can young Americans live without TikTok?Edited by Caitlin Wilson in Washington DCJust nine days before TikTok is set to be banned across the US, the Supreme Court heard final pleas from all sides in today’s hearing. There’s a lot to unpack, so here’s a short summary of what was said: The justices are expected to rule on the matter in the coming days. We are ending our live coverage of this hearing now, but you can learn more below. Thank you for joining us.Lily JamaliNorth America Technology Correspondent, reporting from the Supreme CourtSupreme Court justices
grilled lawyers for TikTok and the US government for nearly three hours on
Friday.The future of the divest-or-ban law now rests in their hands. They are
expected to make a ruling in the coming days. After the hearing, the consensus
among legal observers is that the justices appear poised to uphold the law.”Traditionally the Supreme Court has been willing to defer somewhat when
national security is at stake,” says University of Richmond law professor Carl
Tobias. “I expect that the justices by a majority will side with the
government.” If they’re right, TikTok could be shut down as planned on 19 January. The Supreme Court could also defer on the merits of the case, and
decide to temporarily halt the law with an injunction. That would give
President-elect Donald Trump what he wants: time to broker a political solution that would –
in his words – “save TikTok”.Lily JamaliNorth America technology correspondent, reporting from the Supreme CourtJacob Hubert, a lawyer and president of the Liberty Justice Centre, which represents internet content creator BASED Politics, tells me it is hard to say how the Supreme Court will rule based on the questions the justices asked today.”There are tough questions for both sides of course, which is what you would expect,” Hubert says.His position is that the ban would violate freedom of speech laws for millions of Americans, and says that lawyers for TikTok have managed to argue that point. “It’s not about China’s rights, or the Communist Party’s rights,” he says. “It is about the rights of Americans who use TikTok to, largely, speak with other Americans.”Hubert, whose organization helped their clients file a lawsuit against the ban, argues that the US could pass a law tackling data privacy issues with TikTok, rather than banning its use.”I think the justices did appreciate that this law restricts speech based on content,” Hubert says. Monique shares dermatology content on TikTok with over 160,000 followersFor content creators in the US, today’s hearing marked a nervous
moment – particularly for those who’ve made a career on the app.Regular scrollers will be familiar with the vast array of
content available on the platform; with creators able to make money by posting
videos of them doing anything from dancing to sharing recipe tips.But, if after hearing today’s arguments, the Supreme Court
decides to uphold the ban, this would shut off an entire revenue stream for
creators in the US.It would also mean that people in the UK no longer get to see
their favourite US-based creators’ content, as they would be unable to share
new videos.As rumours of a ban started to swirl in 2023, beauty and
skincare blogger Monique – known to her 160,000 followers as the Skinfiltrator
– expressed her concerns.She says that the app “rewards smaller creators” more
than competitors like YouTube, and has given her the opportunity to connect
with her audience as well as other dermatology professionals.”People are tired of hard sales,” she says. “They
want authenticity and they want things that are relatable, and Tik Tok is very
relatable.”So I just don’t think
it’s gonna be replaced by another app any time soon.”TikTok ban: What could it mean for creators?Liv McMahonTechnology reporterJust as the former solicitor general Noel Francisco, appearing
for TikTok and ByteDance, sought to drive home their argument that the
sale-or-ban law would burden the platform’s speech – current Solicitor General
Elizabeth B Prelogar repeatedly returned to the government’s view that the
Chinese state could, at some point, try to access sensitive US user data via
the companies.She stressed that TikTok collects more data than other platforms
on an “unprecedented” scale – a claim the company has denied – and warned it
represented risks of espionage and blackmail.But some justices seemed almost bored with some elements of this
arguments. Justice Kagan said that TikTok’s Chinese ownership was well-known,
rather than something allowing the platform to be left open to “covert”
manipulation.She added that surely every social platform had its own “black
box” algorithm of sorts.Protecting against risks that have not yet materialised was
described by Justice Gorsuch as “a pretty paternalistic point of view”.
Though not all were so sceptical.Justice Roberts joked that if, as Prelogar suggested, ByteDance
may be trying to get Americans to argue with each other via TikTok – it had
already won.Leaving things on a less certain note was her response to a
question about the looming deadline for TikTok’s ban, and whether
President-elect Trump could delay it.
Francisco had said that if the law is upheld, the platform would “go dark”
on its 19 January deadline day – but Prelogar suggested there was still time
for a sale or change to the way TikTok operates.Here is how TikTok lawyer Noel Francisco frames the company’s
final plea:First, he says the government was required to consider less
restrictive alternatives, like a law barring data sharing or a warning about
the government’s concerns. He rejects the technical difficulties that the
government says makes simply barring sharing impossible.Second, he stresses that this law singles out TikTok, noting
that there are other Chinese apps, like e-commerce sites Temu and Shein, that
are also harvesting vast amounts of data from Americans.Third, he says the US is not concerned just about covert Chinese
control but about the risk of China “getting Americans to argue with each
other… As far as I can tell that’s what news organisations in this
country do every day,” he quips.And fourth, he says the Supreme Court could suspend the law –
enter an “administrative stay” – to give it more time to consider the
ruling.He ends returning to the argument that the law is “at
war” with the first amendment.”My friends on the other side are ultimately worried that
ideas that appear on the TikTok platform could in the future somehow manipulate
Americans,” he says. “The government cannot
restrict speech in order to protect us from speech. That’s precisely what this
law does from beginning to end.”After a short period of time for rebuttals, the Supreme Court
hearing wraps up.Lasting just shy of three hours, we heard arguments from the
government, TikTok and content creators on why a ban on TikTok should, or
should not, go ahead on the 19 January.Stick with us, and we’ll unpack all of the developments from
today’s court proceedings.To finish off, Prelogar is asked about the concern that a president could choose not to implement the law, or whether TikTok could simply choose to ignore the law on 19 January. Preloga agrees that both of these scenarios would amount to a violation of the law. Finishing off her point about the risk of harm to the US from
allowing ByteDance to continue to own TikTok, Preloga says that the ability of
the Chinese government to gather such a huge data set on over 170 million
Americans poses a significant threat.This, she says, “exposes our nation as a whole to a risk of
espionage and blackmail”.Justices and the lawyer representing the US government are now
discussing a point brought up earlier by TikTok’s lawyer, which is whether a
warning placed on TikTok to users could be enough to address concerns about its
ties to China without banning it altogether.”I don’t think that would address the government’s national
security concerns,” Elizabeth Prelogar, the government’s lawyer, says.”There is a distinct, sovereign harm to the US if our
foreign adversary could collect this massive data set about 170 million
Americans.”She adds that while a large user base of TikTok is young
Americans – those same Americans could grow up to be military personnel, or
senior government officials. China having access to their data, she says,
exposes the US to the risk of espionage and blackmail.The lawyer for the government Prelogar has just hit back on an argument from TikTok, that the site will go dark and cease operating on 19 January. “Nothing permanent” has to happen that day, she says. She says there are still ways for TikTok to change the way they operate – such as ByteDance divesting from the company, as the law demands – that would allow it to keep operating. And she says TikTok could even keep using the ByteDance algorithm. That is in contradiction from what lawyers for TikTok and content creators have argued. The government’s lawyer, Elizabeth Prelogar, is asked how she thinks the Supreme Court should respond to President-elect Trump’s request they delay enforcement of the act to give him time to work out a deal. Prelogar demurs on the legal question, but she does note that the law allows for TikTok to resume operation as soon as a sale occurs. She says forcing the app to go dark could be just the “jolt” ByteDance, TikTok’s Chinese owner, needs to seriously consider a sale.”It will fundamentally change the landscape with respect to what ByteDance might consider,” she says, comparing the situation to “game of chicken” and one in which the US should not “blink first”.The point seems to resonate, with one judge calling it an interesting point. But in their filings, opponents of the law have said even a temporary suspension would have harmful effects for the many businesses and influencers who use the app. Liv McMahonTechnology reporterJudges seemed perhaps more enthused by Professor Fisher’s
arguments representing concerned content creators than they did with TikTok’s
lawyer – at least for those like me, who are listening in from afar and can’t
see their facial expressions.Among his arguments were that there were ways the US could
continue in its tradition of legislation creating disclosure around foreign
company risks and ownership in the case of TikTok, rather than ban it
altogether.He also asked why TikTok was being singled out in the law,
unlike fellow Chinese-owned app Temu.But some judges did want to get to the heart of what makes
TikTok so special.Justice Alito in particular questioned the notion that ByteDance
had managed to concoct some kind of “magic” algorithm that couldn’t
be replicated by others.He appeared dismissive of Fisher’s contention that creators he
represents have expressed struggles to build the same followings and success on
other platforms. Rivals are only just managing to catch up to TikTok, said
Fisher.But by and large, his arguments, among which was the suggestion
that there was a different way forward than the law being tussled over today,
seemed better-met – and led into a series of tough questions for Solicitor
General Elizabeth B Prelogar.The Justices are discussing once again whether this is a speech
issue or a data control issue.”Content manipulation is a content-based rationale,”
says Justice Elena Kagan, comparing the US government’s argument to one that
was made decades ago in the 1950s against Communist Party speech.Elizabeth Prelogar argues that this case is unique, and looks
nothing like the kinds of laws the Supreme Court has seen in the past. She also
challenges the idea that “content manipulation” is tied to
restricting content alone.She says that, “Congress just wants to cut the PRC out of
the equation all together, and all of the same speech can continue to happen on
the platform.”In trying to draw comparisons, Justice Kagan raises the
historical example of fears about Soviet Union activity in the United States in
the 20th century.She asks whether it would have been okay in that scenario for
the government to request that the US Communist Party divest itself from any
association with the Soviet Union in any content it delivered.Prelogar accepts that in this scenario, strict scrutiny over the
law would be engaged because of its potential impact on the First Amendment.But, the lawyer suggests that the law is not specifically
content based, and says that it is instead intended to address any opportunity
for the Chinese Communist Party to get in through the back door.She says that for the First Amendment to be engaged, Congress
must want to repress speech on certain viewpoints and certain topics, which is
not the case here.Elizabeth Prelogar, the lawyer representing the US government, is mainly arguing that because TikTok is owned by a “foreign adversary”, it would be weaponised to harm the US and its interest. Chief Justice John Roberts brings up a point made earlier, which is that “ByteDance might be through TikTok trying to get Americans to argue with each other?””If they do, then I say they’re winning,” Roberts says – a comment that drew laughter from both Prelogar and those in attendance. Prelogar then argues that China looks for every opportunity to weaken the US. If it has control over TikTok – “a key communications channel” – it is hard to predict how it can use it as a tool to harm American interests. “We know the PRC [People’s Republic of China] has a veracious appetite to get its hands on as much information about Americans as possible,” she adds, referring to TikTok as a “potent weapon” that can be used to that effect. Judges are pressing the US government about why Chinese
ownership is a risk, saying “everybody now knows” about its role.Kagan notes that TikTok has said it is even willing to have a
disclosure on its website warning of the government’s concerns. Others press on
what the implications would be for foreign-owned publications, like newspapers.But Prelogar says: “Americans are on this platform thinking
they are speaking to one another.”She says it is important that alleged Chinese activities are
“covert”, saying a blanket warning “doesn’t put anyone on notice
as to when that influence is actually happening”.Fisher finishes up on behalf of content creators.Then, it’s Elizabeth Prelogar, the US Solicitor General, who represents the government.She immediately says that the Chinese government’s control of TikTok poses a “grave threat” to national security. She says that there is no dispute that China compels companies like ByteDance to secretly turn over data.This means, she says, that the Chinese government could “weaponise” TikTok at any time to harm the US.Prelogar says the Chinese government is building “detailed profiles” about Americans, with this data set becoming a “powerful tool” to be used against them. And, she denies that the Act focuses on banning certain types of content, saying that it is narrowly tailored to address national security threats.”The Act leaves all of that speech unrestricted once TikTok is freed from foreign adversary control,” she adds.Justine Samuel Alito floats the idea of whether some other social media company could come in and fill the void left by TikTok should it be banned in the US – one that would allow Americans to still make content and profit off of it.Fisher, the lawyer for content creators, responds by saying that many of his clients have tried to post on other platforms to generate the same audience and engagement they have received on TikTok, but have been unable to do so. Justice Alito then asks if the creators’ attachment to TikTok is sentimental, like how one might feel about “an old article of clothing”. “Empirically, other companies have been trying for a few years to catch up with TikTok and replicate it,” Fisher notes. “But they have been unsuccessful, and that ought to tell you something.”Kagan is testing Fisher about whether the First Amendment rights of Americans can reasonably be extended to TikTok, given that it is owned by a foreign corporation. “it doesn’t matter that Americans want to work with ByteDance because ByteDance is a foreign corporation which doesn’t have First Amendment rights,” she says. But Fisher says he thinks that’s not quite right, comparing creators who want to use TikTok’s algorithm to a bookstore that wants to sell a book. “The Communist manifesto written by Karl Marx has no first amendment standing on its own in America but if a bookstore wants to sell that publication, I don’t think Congress can prevent it from doing so,” he says. They don’t get into national security issues, which might complicate that picture.© 2025 BBC. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Read about our approach to external linking.
