Supreme Court rules against TikTok app, Trump reacts: TikTok decision is up to me

2025-01-17 21:34:36Kosova&Bota SHKRUAR NGA REDAKSIA VOX
Donald Trump

US President-elect Donald Trump said on Friday that the decision on the future of the TikTok app will be up to him. Earlier, the US Supreme Court ruled to ban the social network across the country starting this Sunday, January 19, 2025.

Trump did not provide details on what steps he would take to address this issue.

"Ultimately it's up to me. So you'll see what I do," Trump said in an interview with CNN.

"Congress has given me the approved decision. So, I will make a decision," Trump declared.

Court decision

The Supreme Court unanimously upheld a federal law on Friday that bans the TikTok network in the United States starting Sunday unless it is sold by its China-based parent company.

The court finds that the national security risk posed by TikTok's ties to China outweighs concerns about restricting freedom of expression for the app's 170 million users in the United States.

The TikTok network sale doesn't seem likely to happen anytime soon, and while experts have said the app won't disappear from existing users' phones once the law goes into effect on Jan. 19, new users won't be able to download it and app updates will be blocked. This will ultimately render the app inoperable, according to court filings filed by the Justice Department.

The decision came against the backdrop of comments from President-elect Donald Trump, who vowed he could negotiate a solution, and while President Joe Biden's administration has signaled it will not enforce the law starting Sunday, his last full day in office.

President-elect Trump, aware of the popularity of the TikTok network and his 14.7 million followers on this application, finds himself on the opposite side of the argument presented by prominent Republican senators, who blame the Chinese company that owns the TikTok network for not finding a buyer sooner.

It is unclear what options are open to Trump after he is sworn in as president on Monday.

The law allows for a 90-day pause in restrictions on the app, if there was progress towards sales, before it went into effect.

State's Attorney Elizabeth Prelogar, who defended the law in the Supreme Court on behalf of President Biden's administration, told the justices last week that it is uncertain whether the prospect of a sale after the law takes effect could provide a 90-day deadline for TikTok.

During the arguments, a lawyer for TikTok and its Chinese parent company ByteDance Ltd. said it would be difficult to reach a sale agreement, especially since Chinese law restricts the sale of the algorithm that has made the social media platform so successful.

The app allows users to watch hundreds of videos in nearly half an hour, some of which are only a few seconds long, according to a lawsuit filed last year by the state of Kentucky, which alleges that TikTok is designed to create addiction and harm children's mental health. Similar lawsuits have been filed by more than a dozen other U.S. states. TikTok has called the allegations false.

The dispute over TikTok's ties to China epitomizes the geopolitical competition between Washington and Beijing.

The United States has said it is concerned that the Chinese government could collect vast amounts of user data from TikTok, including sensitive information that could be obtained by the Chinese government. Officials have also warned that the algorithm that determines what content users see on the app is vulnerable to manipulation by Chinese authorities, who could use it to shape content on the platform in a way that is difficult to detect.

TikTok emphasizes that the United States has not presented evidence that China has attempted to manipulate content on its American platform, or to collect data from American users through TikTok.

The legislation passed by a bipartisan majority in Congress and was signed into law by President Joe Biden in April. The law was the culmination of a years-long saga in Washington over TikTok, which the US government sees as a threat to national security.

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