Supreme Court Upholds TikTok Sell-Off Bill in the US

UPDATE: On Friday afternoon, TikTok shared the following update:

“The statements issued today by both the Biden White House and the Department of Justice have failed to provide the necessary clarity and assurance to the service providers that are integral to maintaining TikTok’s availability to over 170 million Americans. Unless the Biden Administration immediately provides a definitive statement to satisfy the most critical service providers assuring non-enforcement, unfortunately TikTok will be forced to go dark on January 19.”

The key sticking point here is that while the White House has said that it will not enforce the TikTok ban on Sunday, giving the incoming Trump Administration an opportunity to review and enact as they see fit, the technical wording of the bill holds the app facilitators (i.e. Apple and Google) responsible, and could open them up to fines if they continue to support TikTok after the official date.

So at this stage, it seems that TikTok will “go dark” in the U.S., at least for some period of time.

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If nothing else, the TikTok saga in the U.S. has definitely maintained a healthy sense of drama.

As expected, the Supreme Court has today announced that it will uphold the ruling of the Senate-approved Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, which rules that TikTok, and other apps owned by Chinese corporations operating in the U.S. (with more than a million U.S. users), need to either be sold into U.S.-ownership, or cease operating in the nation.

That means that TikTok will be shut down in the U.S. on Sunday, leaving 170 million U.S.-based TikTok users to find some other way to spend their time.

Right?

Well, apparently not.

The TikTok ban is now subject to new political wrangling, with outgoing President Joe Biden apparently looking to alleviate his responsibility for enforcing the bill, and incoming commander-in-chief Donald Trump pledging to save the app for American users.

And it sure seems like TikTok, at the least, believes that Trump has a plan.

That’s TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew, who will be in attendance for Trump’s inauguration next week, putting his faith in Trump to find a solution “that keeps TikTok available in the United States.”

So what can Trump do, exactly?

Well, as noted, if the Biden administration doesn’t enforce the bill, and force the respective app stores to de-list TikTok on Sunday, that could mean that doing so will carry over to Trump once he’s inaugurated early next week. Technically, that’s not how it should work, but again, reports have suggested that this is seemingly what Biden’s team is planning to do, in order to side-step the issue.

Legal experts have suggested that, once inaugurated, Trump could issue an executive order that would direct agencies not to enforce the TikTok ban, effectively nullifying the approved bill, though that would also mean contravening the Senate-approved bill, and undermining the previous ruling.

That could cause tensions between Trump and other senators. But then again, there’s already a lot of tension there, so…

For his part, Trump says that he spoke with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday, and the two discussed TikTok, among other concerns.

He’s also said that he’s reviewing the situation:

So what does that mean for U.S. TikTokers, and the prospects for the app moving forward?

Well, despite the legal ruling, it still seems like TikTok might not go dark after all, and could continue on unimpeded after Sunday. But the app could also be shut down for a period, giving Trump more time to negotiate an alternative that meets the demands of the approved bill.

I would suspect that the latter is more likely, going by the rule of law, but it seems that either remains a possibility.

We’ll find out in two days’ time.