WASHINGTON: Donald Trump has urged the US Supreme Court to pause a federal TikTok law that would ban the popular social media app or force its sale, with the Republican US president-elect arguing he should have time after taking office to pursue a “political solution” to the issue.
TikTok and its owner ByteDance are fighting to keep the popular app online in the US after Congress voted in April to ban it unless the app’s Chinese parent company sells it by January 19.
They have tried to have the law overturned and the Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case.
But if the court does not rule in ByteDance’s favor and no divestiture takes place, the app could effectively be banned in the US on January 19, a day before Trump takes office.
“This case presents an unprecedented, new and difficult tension between free speech on the one hand and foreign policy and national security concerns on the other,” Trump said in a filing on Friday (Dec. 27).
“Such a stay would crucially allow President Trump the opportunity to pursue a policy resolution that could obviate the Court’s need to decide these constitutionally significant issues,” the filing added.
Free speech advocates separately told the Supreme Court on Friday that the US law against Chinese-owned TikTok evokes the censorship regimes imposed by America’s authoritarian enemies.
Trump indicated earlier this week that he advocated allowing TikTok to continue operating in the United States for at least a little while, saying he had received billions of views on the social media platform during his presidential campaign.
The US Department of Justice has argued that Chinese control of TikTok poses a continuing threat to national security, a position supported by most US lawmakers.
TikTok says the Justice Department has misinterpreted the social media app’s ties to China, arguing that its content recommendation engine and user data are stored in the US on cloud servers run by Oracle, while content moderation decisions affecting US users are made in the US as well.
