Has TikTok been banned in the US? What you need to know about the Supreme Court decision

The Supreme Court appeared inclined on Friday to uphold a law that would force the sale or ban the short-video app TikTok in the United States starting January 19, as the justices focused on concerns over a potential national security threat.

The social platform says the law violates the First Amendment and should be rejected.

ByteDance, the company that owns TikTok, is based in China, and the U.S. government says it poses a potential national security threat. U.S. officials say Chinese authorities could force TikTok to hand over sensitive data on a large number of American users or influence the distribution of information on the platform.

An appeals court upheld the law, which bans TikTok if it is not sold.

The law takes effect on January 19, the day before the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump, who has 14.7 million followers on the platform. The Republican leader says he wants to “save TikTok.”

During the hearing, which lasted about 2 1/2 hours, the nine members of the Supreme Court questioned lawyers representing the TikTok platform, the Chinese company ByteDance, which owns TikTok, and users of the app about the risk that the Chinese government could use the platform to spy on Americans and conduct covert influence operations, while also considering concerns about freedom of speech.

Some judges raised concerns about the law's impact on free speech, but their concern seemed focused on the national security implications of a foreign-owned social media platform collecting data from 170 million American users, about half the population of the United States.

Conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh asked TikTok and ByteDance lawyer Noel Francisco about the potential long-term risks of China collecting data on users, especially those who started using the app at a young age, and the risks that it could use “that information, over time, to spy on, or to blackmail people, individuals who may work in the future for the FBI or the CIA or the State Department.”

Lawyer Francisco called the application one of the most popular platforms where Americans exercise freedom of speech and added that Tik-Tok would essentially close on January 19 without being sold.

Conservative Justice Samuel Alito later raised the possibility that the court could issue what is called an administrative stay that would temporarily suspend the law while the justices decide how to proceed.

When does the Supreme Court make its decision?

The members of the Supreme Court will make the decision after arguments on Friday, a swift decision based on the court's standards.

The court, which is composed of a conservative majority, can give signs of which direction it is leaning during the unfolding of oral arguments.

TikTok's lawyers urged members of the Supreme Court to intervene before the law takes effect, saying that even a month-long outage of the app would result in the loss of about a third of its daily American users and would hurt advertising revenue.

The court can block the law from entering into force even before announcing its final decision if at least five of the nine judges think it is contrary to the constitution.

Has TikTok been banned?

Not for now, but the app where users post short videos that are shared with the public could be banned in less than two weeks if the Supreme Court leaves the law in effect.

Congress passed the law with bipartisan support, and Democratic President Joe Biden signed it into law in April.

TikTok's lawyers challenged the law in court, where they were joined by users of the app and content creators who say the platform's ban would upend their livelihoods. TikTok representatives say the national security concerns are based on inaccurate and hypothetical information.

But an appeals court panel, made up of judges appointed by Republican and Democratic presidents, unanimously decided to leave the law in place.

What has President-elect Trump stated on this issue?

The law takes effect on January 19, the day before Mr. Trump begins his term as president.

He took the unusual step of filing court papers asking the Supreme Court to lift the law so he can negotiate a deal to sell TikTok after he takes office. His stance is the latest example of how he is getting involved in national affairs before he even takes office. His stance has also changed since his last presidential term, when he wanted to ban it.

ByteDance, which owns TikTok, has said in the past that it has no plans to sell the platform. Mr. Trump met with TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida last month.

Who else is involved in the debate?

Free speech groups, such as the ACLU and the Electronic Front Foundation, are urging the court to block the law, saying the government has not provided substantial evidence of the harm TikTok causes and that the ban would cause "extraordinary problems" in the lives of Americans.

On the other hand, Senator Mitch McConnell, the former Republican leader in the Senate, and a group of 22 states have submitted papers in support of the ban, arguing that the law protects freedom of expression by preserving Americans' data and preventing the possible manipulation of information found on this platform by Chinese authorities./ VOA