An advocate holds a TikTok sign after a press conference outside the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC, U.S., Tuesday, March 12, 2024.
Graeme Sloan | Bloomberg | Getty Images
TikTok asked the Supreme Court on Monday to temporarily block a potential ban on the popular social media app pending an appeal of a lower court ruling.
Days earlier, a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., refused to issue an injunction in favor of the app, which is used by 170 million Americans.
On December 6, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., upheld a federal law that requires China’s ByteDance to sell TikTok by January 19, otherwise it will face an effective ban in the United States.
The appeals court cited national concerns raised by members of Congress who supported the law.
“Congress has enacted massive and unprecedented restrictions on speech,” TikTok’s lawyers wrote in a request to the Supreme Court on Monday. TikTok is an online platform that is one of the most popular and important places for communication in the United States.
Lawyers for the company argued that there is a “strong public interest” in having the Supreme Court review an appeals court decision upholding a related law, the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversaries Controlled Applications Act.
“This bill would shut down one of America’s most popular speech platforms the day before the presidential inauguration,” the filing states. “This would in turn deprive applicants and the many who use the platform to communicate about politics, business, the arts, and other issues of public concern. Americans’ speech fell into silence.”
“The Supreme Court has a strong record of upholding Americans’ right to free speech,” TikTok Policy said in a statement posted on its X social media account.
“Today, we are asking the court to do what it has done in free speech cases before: apply the strictest scrutiny to speech bans and conclude that they violate the First Amendment,” the statement read.
The same post said estimates show that if TikTok were banned, small businesses using the app would lose more than $1 billion in revenue in just one month, and creators would lose nearly $300 million in revenue in just one month. .
This is breaking news. Please refresh for updates.
About The Author
