TikTok makes last ditch bid to Supreme Court to halt US ban on app

Outgoing President Joe Biden passed legislation earlier this year which would ban the video platform if its Chinese parent company ByteDance didn’t sell the app before the 2025 deadline.

But President-elect Donald Trump, who has professed to be a fan of the video streamer, could be their last hope in reversing the decision despite his own attempt to block TikTok during his first term.

Trump believes the app had an impact in securing young voters during his campaign, no doubt thanks to all those dancing videos.

“TikTok had an impact, and so we’re taking a look at it,” he said this week. “I have a little bit of a warm spot in my heart. I’ll be honest.”

Trump is inaugurated as President and will assume office on January 20, the day after the deadline.

The Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, which was passed by Congress in April, will make TikTok illegal for distribution in the US if ByteDance cannot sell the platform by January 19, 2025.

The app will be illegal for distribution through app stores like the Apple App Store and Google Play. Internet service providers will also be required to make the app inaccessible on US internet browsers.

US Government officials have been gunning for TikTok for years, concerned the Beijing-based ByteDance posed a threat to national security because it could access data from American users.Biden signed the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act several months ago which would make it illegal for app stores or internet service providers to distribute TikTok.

Its parent company has launched several legal bids through the US court system to halt the ban, with a lower court dismissing another appeal lodged by ByteDance in a ruling over the weekend.

TikTok has now taken its fight to the US Supreme Court, seeking a last ditch injunction to thwart the looming end to the app’s availability in America. A group of users – about 170 million Americans have downloaded the app – have filed a similar action.

The app’s owners claim they are in a fight for free speech against the US Government.

In their filing to the Supreme Court, ByteDance said that “if Americans, duly informed of the alleged risks of ‘covert’ content manipulation, choose to continue viewing content on TikTok with their eyes wide open, the First Amendment entrusts them with making that choice, free from the government’s censorship.”

The filing added: “ … Congress will have free rein to ban any American from speaking simply by identifying some risk that the speech is influenced by a foreign entity.”

Fans of the app who already have it downloaded ahead of the deadline would still be able to use it but the ban from app stores would be no more software updates.

TikTok is one of the apps and platforms which would be banned for Australian users aged younger than 16 under the recent world-first social media legislation introduced by the Albanese government.