TikTok Asks Supreme Court to Halt Divestment Law

The TikTok logo is displayed on a mobile phone in front of a computer screen displaying a TikTok home page, in Boston, Mass., on March 18, 2023. Michael Dwyer/AP Photo

Social media platform TikTok is asking the Supreme Court to temporarily block a law requiring its parent company, ByteDance, to divest the platform by Jan. 19, 2025, or cease operations in the United States.

The Dec. 16 filing came after the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rejected TikTok’s attempt to halt the law pending review by the Supreme Court.

Earlier this month, a three-judge panel from the D.C. Circuit upheld the law over TikTok’s claim that it violated the First Amendment. Citing national security concerns, the panel said the law satisfied a standard of review under the First Amendment known as “strict scrutiny.”

In its emergency application to the Supreme Court, Tiktok asked the justices to rule by Jan. 6, 2025, on whether to pause the law.

If the court pauses the law, it could also take up the case for more thorough consideration.

TikTok’s petition suggested the court take up the case with the question “whether the Act is unconstitutional as applied to TikTok Inc. and ByteDance Ltd. because it categorically and uniquely prohibits them from operating the TikTok speech platform and other applications in this country.”

TikTok told the Supreme Court that an interim injunction on the law was appropriate, given that President-elect Donald Trump’s administration was about to assume power.

“There is a reasonable possibility that the new Administration will pause enforcement of the Act or otherwise seek to mitigate its most severe potential consequences,” the platform told Chief Justice John Roberts.

Its brief pointed to a video in which Trump said, “I’m going to save TikTok,” as well as a statement by Rep. Mike Waltz (R-Fla.), whom Trump chose to serve as his national security adviser.

“We absolutely need to allow the American people to have access to that app, but we have to protect our data as well,” Waltz said during an interview with Fox Business Network.

On the day of TikTok’s application to the Supreme Court, Trump gave a press conference in which he expressed sympathy for the platform.

“We’ll take a look at TikTok,” he said, noting that he had a “warm spot” in his heart for the platform. He added that TikTok had an effect on the support he received from young people in the election.

The law’s cut-off date of Jan. 19, 2025, is just a day before Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20.

Trump, however, has also said that he considers TikTok a threat to national security.

“I do believe it, and we have to very much admit we are protecting American people’s privacy and data rights,” he said during an appearance on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” in March.

If the Department of Justice (DOJ) files a response before Trump takes office, it will likely oppose TikTok’s request as it did in the D.C. Circuit.

“TikTok’s continued operation in the United States under its current ownership poses substantial harms to national security by virtue of TikTok’s data-collection practices and the covert intelligence and surveillance efforts of the Chinese government,” the DOJ told the circuit court in a filing this month.

Tiktok, meanwhile, told the Supreme Court that “there is no imminent threat to national security,” noting that Congress itself delayed implementation.

TikTok asked the Supreme Court to intervene by Jan. 6 “to provide mobile application stores and internet hosting providers time to conform their conduct before January 19.”

The House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party has sent letters warning Apple and Google about the D.C. Circuit’s decision—specifically citing mobile app stores.

“As you know, without a qualified divestiture, the Act makes it unlawful to ‘[provide] services to distribute, maintain, or update such foreign adversary controlled application (including any source code of such application) by means of a marketplace (including an online mobile application store) through which users within the land or maritime borders of the United States may access, maintain, or update such application,’” one of the letters reads.

On Dec. 13, the D.C. Circuit said it was rejecting TikTok’s request to halt the law pending Supreme Court review.

“The petitioners have not identified any case in which a court, after rejecting a constitutional challenge to an Act of Congress, has enjoined the Act from going into effect while review is sought in the Supreme Court,” an order from the court reads.

TikTok has emphasized the scope of its usership within the United States. Congress’s law, it told the Supreme Court, “will cause TikTok’s American base of 170 million monthly users and creators to lose access to one of the country’s most popular speech platforms, destroy TikTok’s ability to attract advertisers, and cripple TikTok’s ability to recruit and retain talent.”

Catherine Yang and Andrew Moran contributed to this report.