WASHINGTON (Diya TV) — The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday unanimously upheld a federal law that will effectively ban TikTok unless its Chinese owner, ByteDance, sells its U.S. operations by Jan. 19. The decision ends months of legal battles over the video-sharing platform and intensifies pressure on ByteDance to divest its American arm.
Signed into law by President Joe Biden in April, the law prohibits web hosting companies from hosting TikTok and bars app stores from offering it for download. Users who already have the app installed will be able to continue to use it, but new downloads and updates will be unavailable, which will eventually render the platform obsolete, according to the Justice Department.
The court’s ruling reflects bipartisan concerns over TikTok’s potential as a national security risk. Lawmakers have cited fears that the Chinese government could exploit TikTok to collect user data or influence content viewed by its 170 million U.S. users. ByteDance has consistently denied these allegations, stating that no evidence links the app to manipulation or data breaches by Beijing.
“Congress has determined that divestiture is necessary to address its well-supported national security concerns,” the court said in its ruling. Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Neil Gorsuch filed separate opinions expressing reservations but supported the outcome.
President-elect Donald Trump, who will assume office on Jan. 20, says he is committed to finding ways to address concerns over TikTok, whose popularity among his 14.7 million followers hasn’t waned. Still, no immediate sale seems imminent – ByteDance has so far refused to comply with the divestment demands because of Chinese laws that ban the sale of proprietary algorithms.
The legal fights of TikTok are one of the latest flashpoints among rising geopolitical tensions between the U.S. and China. Already banned from India, it could soon face the same fate in the United States, potentially reshaping the social media landscape.
