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The Supreme Court has agreed to hear oral arguments on January 10 around the TikTok divest-or-ban law. It could be TikTok's last hope of maintaining a presence in the US.
TikTok is challenging an April bill passed by Congress that required its owner, ByteDance, to divest from its US app or see it removed from app stores on January 19.
Congress has called TikTok a national risk because its parent company is based in China, a country the US government views as a foreign adversary. US officials worry that TikTok could be used as a propaganda tool by the Chinese Communist Party. Members of Congress are also concerned that TikTok's US user data could end up in the hands of the CCP. TikTok has previously said that it does not share information with the Chinese government and relies on a US-based team to moderate content "independently from China."
TikTok filed a lawsuit against the legislation in the DC Circuit court in May, arguing that it violated the First Amendment rights of its users. The company lost its case earlier this month and filed an appeal to the Supreme Court, requesting an injunction to stop enforcement of the law until it can argue its case to the highest court.
It's not clear that the Supreme Court will be any more favorable to TikTok than the DC Circuit judges, however. In a recent report, Matthew Schettenhelm, a senior litigation analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, gave the company a 20% chance of reversing its loss at the Supreme Court.
If the Supreme Court opts not to rescue TikTok, Donald Trump may still try to, though his options are limited. The incoming president met with TikTok's top executive, Shou Chew, on Monday and said during a press conference that day that he would "take a look at TikTok" and had "a warm spot in my heart for TikTok."
