The United States Supreme Court has upheld a law banning TikTok in the country on national security grounds if its Chinese parent company ByteDance does not sell it, putting the popular short-video app on track to go dark in two days.
The background: The law was passed by an overwhelming bipartisan majority in Congress last year and signed by President Joe Biden, though a growing chorus of lawmakers who voted it are now seeking to keep TikTok operating in the US.
TikTok, ByteDance and some of the app's users challenged the law, but the Supreme Court decided that it did not violate the US Constitution's First Amendment protection against government abridgment of free speech, as they had argued.
The court's 9-0 decision throws the social media platform — and its 170 million American users — into limbo, and its fate in the hands of Donald Trump, who has vowed to rescue TikTok after
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Data security concerns prompt TikTok ban in US. How would it be enforced?
SBS News
17/01/202505:14
The key quote: "My decision on TikTok will be made in the not too distant future, but I must have time to review the situation. Stay tuned!" — Donald Trump, in a social media post.
Trump said he and Chinese President Xi Jinping discussed TikTok in a phone call on Friday.
What else to know: In response to the ban, American TikTok users have flocked to another Chinese-owned app in protest — Xiaohongshu, or RedNote in English.
