United States: TikTok’s future in the US, which is threatened with a ban, will be decided by the Supreme Court in the case to be heard on Friday, which pits free speech rights against national security concerns of the worldwide popular short video app owned by Chinese company ByteDance.
More about the news
TikTok, ByteDance, and some content producers on the app have objected to a law calling for its sale by January 19 or its ban in the US.
It was enacted by a near-unanimous Congress in December and went into force in January of this year, supported by Republicans and Democrats; the Biden administration, which is charged with implementing the law, is the legal respondent and defendant in the case.
What did the federal court order?
The federal district court dismissed the claim to the effect that the law infringes on the First Amendment right of free speech in the US Constitution.

The Supreme Court’s attention to the lawsuit arises at a time when the world’s largest economies seem to be engaged in a trade war.
Republican Donald Trump, who is set to be inaugurated for his second term as president on January 20, has been against the ban.
The Supreme Court is ready to balance two factors: the First Amendment rights and the national security risks of a social media platform owned by foreign individuals that aggregates data from 170 million Americans, a population equating to approximately half the country’s population.
Even the Justice Department has stated that TikTok is a major threat to the national security of the United States because this app could serve as a gold mine of data about ordinary Americans that the Chinese government could use for espionage or blackmail, or tweak the content viewed by Americans on the app to serve its strategic agenda.

Platform algorithm chooses particular individual users and provides them with short videos they might find interesting.
TikTok has claimed that the ban would affect its users, advertisement revenues, content generators, and the talent pool of employees. The app has 7,000 employees.
According to the challengers in the case, the passage of the law would imperil the First Amendment rights of both TikTok as well as its users and “the entire nation,”
Furthermore, the platform also showcases “one of the most significant speech platforms in America,” added TikTok and ByteDance in a filing, adding that the law is “at war with the First Amendment.”