TikTok and Government Clash in Last Round of Supreme Court Briefs

Both sides in a major Supreme Court showdown over a measure that could shut down TikTok filed their final written arguments Friday, sharply challenging China’s influence on the site and the role the First Amendment should play in evaluating the law.

Their briefs, filed on an exceptionally abbreviated schedule set by the justices last month, were part of a high-stakes dispute over the government’s insistence that TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, sell the app’s operations in the United States or shut it down. The Supreme Court, seeking to resolve the case before the Jan. 19 statutory deadline, will hear arguments at a special hearing next Friday.

A court decision that could be handed down this month will decide the fate of a powerful and widespread cultural phenomenon which uses a complex algorithm to serve users a personalized selection of short videos. TikTok has become, especially for younger generations, a leading source of information and entertainment.

“Rarely, if ever, has a court heard a free speech case that matters to so many people.” brief information submitted on Friday on behalf of a group of TikTok users said. “170 million Americans regularly use TikTok to connect, be entertained, and keep up with news and current events. If the government wins, users in America will lose access to the platform’s billions of videos.”

The reports contained only cursory or oblique references to the actions of President-elect Donald Trump. unusual request Last week, the Supreme Court temporarily blocked the law so he could address the issue after taking office.

The legal deadline for TikTok to be sold or shut down is Jan. 19, the day before Trump’s inauguration.

“This unfortunate timing,” his memo said, “makes it difficult for President Trump to manage United States foreign policy and push for a resolution aimed at both protecting national security and preserving the social media platform that is a popular tool for 170 million Americans.” exercise your fundamental First Amendment rights.”

The law allows the president to extend the deadline by 90 days under limited circumstances. But that provision does not appear to apply because it requires the president to certify to Congress that significant progress has been made on the sale, backed by “appropriate binding legal agreements.”

Brief description of TikTok stressed that the First Amendment protects Americans’ access to speech by foreign adversaries, even if it is propaganda. An alternative to outright censorship, they wrote, is a legal requirement to disclose the source of speech.

“Disclosure is a time-tested and least restrictive alternative to address concerns about the public being misled about the source or nature of speech received, including in the context of international relations and national security,” TikTok said in a statement.

User comments confirmed this. “The maximum resolution of our customs and case law,” the statement said, “is to require disclosure of foreign influence so that people have full information to decide what to believe.”

The government said this approach would not work. “Such general and ongoing disclosure would be clearly ineffective,” said Elizabeth B. Prelogar, U.S. Attorney General. wrote on Friday.

In a statement filed last week in TikTok v. Garland, No. 24-656, the government stated that foreign propaganda could be conducted without violating the Constitution.

“The First Amendment did not require our country to tolerate Soviet ownership and control of U.S. radio stations (or other communications links and critical infrastructure) during the Cold War,” the note said, “nor does it require us to tolerate Soviet ownership and control today.” TikTok is controlled by a foreign adversary.”

A user report disputed this claim. “In fact,” the report said, “the United States tolerated the publication of Pravda, the prototype Soviet propaganda tool, in this country at the height of the Cold War.”

TikTok itself said the government was wrong, accusing it of failing to “directly refute” the claim that “ByteDance is censoring or manipulating content on its platforms at the direction of” the Chinese government.

Censorship is a “heavy term,” TikTok said in a statement. In any case, it said, “Complainants categorically deny that TikTok has ever removed or restricted content in other countries at the request of China.”