Supreme Court justices signal skepticism over TikTok's effort to avoid ban

U.S. Supreme Court justices on Friday questioned why they should intervene to block a law forcing the sale of TikTok in nine days, saying the short-form video platform’s Chinese parent company does not enjoy First Amendment rights. “That’s shown by the remedy: They’re not saying, ‘TikTok has to stop.’ They’re saying, ‘The Chinese have to stop controlling TikTok,’ so it’s not a direct burden on the expression at all.” Lawmakers when the law was debated said the platform was dangerous because ByteDance is subject to Chinese national security laws that can compel companies to hand over data at any time. National security vs. free speech Noel Francisco, who represented TikTok and ByteDance, argued that the law’s true aim was to stop “manipulation of content” by the Chinese government, which he said amounted to censorship in violation of the Constitution. “That, however, is a decision that the First Amendment leaves to the people.” The law burdens TikTok’s speech, Francisco said, “shutting down one of the largest speech platforms in America” that boasts about 170 million U.S. users. “One of the reasons they’re targeting that speaker is because they’re worried about the future content on that platform — that it could, in the future, somehow be critical of the United States or undermine democracy.” Jeffrey Fisher, an attorney for TikTok creators, said a law to prevent content manipulation — the government’s argument that TikTok users were vulnerable to being force-fed content approved by China — was not permitted by the First Amendment.