Attorneys representing President-elect Donald Trump have asked the Supreme Court to pause a law that would force TikTok-owner ByteDance to sell the short-form video app or see it banned from the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If the app isn\u2019t sold, the ban is set to take effect in just a few weeks, on January 19. ByteDance is challenging the constitutionality of the law \u2014 officially titled the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act \u2014 with the Supreme Court scheduled to hear arguments on January 10.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a new filing, Trump\u2019s lawyers describe the ban-or-sell deadline, coming one day before his inauguration, as \u201cunfortunate timing\u201d that interferes with his \u201cability to manage the United States\u2019 foreign policy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The filing does not specify what approach Trump might take to the issue, but it claims that he \u201calone possesses the consummate dealmaking expertise, the electoral mandate, and the political will to negotiate a resolution to save the platform while addressing the national security concerns expressed by the Government.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The filing also notes that he currently has 14.7 million followers on TikTok, \u201callowing him to evaluate TikTok\u2019s importance as a unique medium for freedom of expression, including core political speech.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The law\u2019s supporters have claimed TikTok presents a national security threat because the Chinese government could use it to collect data and push propaganda to US viewers. While Trump attempted to ban TikTok during his first term as president, he has expressed support for the app more recently. During his presidential campaign, he posted on Truth Social, \u201cFOR ALL OF THOSE THAT WANT TO SAVE TIK TOK IN AMERICA, VOTE TRUMP!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Several civil liberties and free speech groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union and Electronic Frontier, have filed their own brief supporting TikTok\u2019s appeal and arguing that \u201cthe government has not presented credible evidence of ongoing or imminent harm caused by TikTok.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Attorneys representing President-elect Donald Trump have asked the Supreme Court to pause a law that would force TikTok-owner ByteDance to sell the short-form video app or see it banned from the United States. If the app isn\u2019t sold, the ban is set to take effect in just a few weeks, on January 19. ByteDance is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1080","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tech"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.timesofmedia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1080","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.timesofmedia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.timesofmedia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.timesofmedia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.timesofmedia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1080"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.timesofmedia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1080\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1081,"href":"https:\/\/www.timesofmedia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1080\/revisions\/1081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.timesofmedia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1080"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.timesofmedia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1080"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.timesofmedia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1080"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}