US Supreme Court to hear TikTok ownership case

WASHINGTON (Gray DC) -It’s a case that pits free speech rights against national security concerns. And the Supreme Court will soon hear oral arguments in a matter that impacts 170 million Americans, and in some cases ,their livelihoods

Back in April, President Biden signed bi-partisan legislation that requires the parent company of TikTok, China-based ByteDance, to sell the app by January 19th . If it fails to do so by the deadline, TikTok will essentially be banned in the U.S. The government contends that TikTok poses a national security threat to the country.

Mary-Rose Papandrea is a professor of constitutional law at the University of North Carolina School of Law. “It’s arguing that TikTok, is owned and controlled by the Chinese government and that the, parent company in, China and that this poses a grave national security risk, because China controls the algorithm that is used to feed information to U.S. citizens.”

TikTok’s owner ByteDance counters that it is actually a US company that has full First Amendment rights, and that shutting down a major social media platform poses a grave threat to First Amendment freedoms. Donald Trump’s legal team filed a brief on behalf of TikTok. The president-elect would like the Supreme Court to block the looming ban.

Professor Papandrea of the University of North Carolina School of Law notes, “It is an unusual brief because he is not yet president, and his brief is full of assertions that the law interferes with executive power. The problem is he is not currently president, so it doesn’t actually undermine his power in any way.”

First amendment scholars, including Constitutional Law Professor Mary-Rose Papandrea, filed a brief opposing the ban, calling it an unprecedented and draconian law. The Supreme Court has only 9 days, until, January 19, to turn around a decision before the TikTok ban goes into effect.

Copyright 2025 Gray DC. All rights reserved.