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The Supreme Court has upheld the law that will effectively ban TikTok on Sunday, January 19. The decision marks the end of TikTok’s months-long legal fight against a law that essentially forces the ByteDance-owned app to shut down unless it divests its US operations.
As of Sunday, it will be illegal for app stores and internet hosting services to distribute the social network. TikTok has warned that the app will simply “go dark” on Sunday, but it’s unclear what exactly will happen once the ban takes effect.
The decision comes days after TikTok pleaded its case before the nation’s highest court, arguing that the law conflicts with the First Amendment, and that the social network needed extra time to allow President elect-Donald Trump to act to save the app. During the hearing, the Department of Justice (DOJ) argued that the law doesn’t violate the First Amendment because it doesn’t aim to regulate free speech on the platform or its algorithm. The DOJ also argued that the Chinese government could compel ByteDance to secretly turn over the data of millions of Americans.
Throughout the legal battle, TikTok argued that divesting the app’s U.S. operations would be impossible because China would prevent the export of the social network’s algorithm. The company also claimed that TikTok would be a fundamentally different service with a different algorithm.
President Biden signed the sell-or-ban law back in April 2024. The bill followed years of allegations from the U.S. government that TikTok’s ties to China pose a national security risk and that it exposes Americans’ sensitive information to the Chinese government.
More to come. Refresh for updates.
Aisha is a consumer news reporter at TechCrunch. Prior to joining the publication in 2021, she was a telecom reporter at MobileSyrup. Aisha holds an honours bachelor’s degree from University of Toronto and a master’s degree in journalism from Western University.
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