
END OF THE ROAD? TikTok Asks Supreme Court to Intervene as Nationwide Ban Set to Take Effect Next Month
TikTok’s presence in America may be reaching the end of the line.
The popular video app, which is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, is currently scheduled to be banned nationwide on January 19th, 2025, just one day before Donald Trump takes office.
However, it has now filed a petition to the Supreme Court in a last ditch attempt to try and save its place in the valuable American media market after all its other legal attempts fell on deaf ears.
“The Act will shutter one of America’s most popular speech platforms the day before a presidential inauguration,” TikTok wrote in its petition.
“This, in turn, will silence the speech of Applicants and the many Americans who use the platform to communicate about politics, commerce, arts, and other matters of public concern.”
The ban comes after years of wrangling among national security experts about the safety of the app, which many believe is used by the Chinese Communist Party to spy, harvest data and manipulate the minds of American citizens.
However, the app also has hundreds of millions of users, a considerable number of whom earn a living from creating content for their audiences.
The petition added that a pause on the ban would “create breathing room for this Court to conduct an orderly review … before this vital channel for Americans to communicate with their fellow citizens and the world is closed.”