TikTok will get Supreme Court docket listening to simply days earlier than ban

TikTok, within the face of the ban, secured an opportunity to throw one final Hail Mary to save lots of itself. The Supreme Court docket has agreed to hear the arguments from TikTok and its mum or dad firm ByteDance explaining why it shouldn’t be banned inside US borders. The listening to is ready for January 10, simply 9 days earlier than the curtain falls on the brief video utility.

TikTok has requested the Excessive Court docket to briefly block enforcement of a regulation that might ban the app until it’s bought to a US firm. The court docket doesn’t instantly grant this emergency measure, however will give the platform the chance to make its arguments earlier than its ban takes place on January 19. by New York Times court observersis that SCOTUS will decide earlier than the sell-or-die deadline arrives for TikTok.

The listening to represents TikTok’s final probability to get its head out of the guillotine. The Defending Individuals from Apps Managed by Overseas Adversaries Act, adopted earlier this yeargave ByteDance 9 months to achieve a deal to divest from TikTok amid issues the platform was being operated by an organization with ties to the Chinese language authorities. No gross sales materialized – and ByteDance apparently I didn’t really look for buyers– so the corporate targeted fully on authorized challenges.

Up to now these have fallen flat. TikTok challenged in the US Court docket of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and argued {that a} ban on the app would violate the First Modification as a result of it could prohibit Individuals’ proper to specific themselves on TikTok. The court docket’s three-judge panel I gave a big thumbs downstating that the First Modification exists to guard free speech in the US and that the ban represents the federal government appearing “solely to guard that freedom from a international adversary nation and to restrict that adversary’s means to gather knowledge about folks in the US. »

It’s subsequently to the Supreme Court docket that TikTok is addressing, the place it hopes to search out favorable judges – or a minimum of favorable to the concept of ​​a delay. At this level, that is perhaps all TikTok wants. Firm CEO, Shou Zi Chew I took a trip to Mar-a-Lago assembly with Trump earlier this week and making his case to dam the ban. Trump a minimum of appears open to the concept, partly as a result of he thinks the platform played a role in his election victory.

Does it matter that Trump is the one who got the ball rolling on a ban within the first place? After all not. It was years in the past when he thought TikTok would hurt him. NOW Trump thinks TikTok is good, actually. And all the corporate wants is a couple of extra days for Trump to re-enter the White Home and challenge some type of motion on the ban.

At this level, even when the Supreme Court docket says it wants extra time to listen to arguments, that might represent a victory for TikTok as a result of it might move the buck to Trump. Time is not on TikTok’s facet, nevertheless it additionally would not want far more to doubtlessly save itself.