Banning Tik Tok Would Violate America's Free Speech Tradition

It’s up to the Supreme Court whether the U.S. will join China, Afghanistan and other authoritarian countries that have barred their citizens from using the popular social media app.

- JACOB MCHANGAMA AND JEFF KOSSEFF

A heavy-handed new law forced TikTok to announce that it would shut down operations "within days." Although the law left people without a popular forum to share and access information, a government official brushed off free speech concerns, saying that the ban did not mean "doom and gloom" for the general public. "Compared with the national security laws of other countries, it is a rather mild law," the official told the BBC.

But this was not an American official describing the shutdown of TikTok that could soon go into effect in the U.S., thanks to a law passed by Congress last April. It was Hong Kong chief executive and Communist Party loyalist Carrie Lam, in 2020, after China approved anti-dissent legislation that forced TikTok to shut down in Hong Kong.

Starting Jan. 10, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in TikTok v. Garland, the company's challenge to the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, which requires TikTok to stop operations in the U.S. unless ByteDance, the Chinese company behind the video-sharing app, sells it to a new owner by Jan. 19. Last week, President-elect Donald Trump filed a brief in the case asking the Court to delay the law's effective date "to allow his incoming Administration to pursue a negotiated resolution that could prevent a nationwide shutdown of TikTok." If the Court upholds the law, more than 170 million American TikTok users will lose access to it. But the effect could end up being much broader. Even Americans who don't use TikTok could soon find their favorite online platforms subject to the whims of regulators and lawmakers.