Skip to main content

U.S. Supreme Court rules in favor of potential TikTok ban

TikTok
The impending TikTok ban has been upheld.

In a unanimous decision, the U.S. Supreme Court has said a law requiring TikTok parent ByteDance to divest ownership of the app's U.S. operations or face a ban here is constitutional.

In a 9-0 ruling released Friday, Jan. 17, 2025, the Supreme Court said the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act will go into effect as scheduled on Sunday, Jan. 19, 2025, making it unlawful for U.S. companies to distribute, maintain, or update TikTok unless U. S. operation of the platform is severed from Chinese control. 

The ruling states that the law does not violate First Amendment free speech guarantees, which TikTok had claimed in an appeal to the law’s passage. The law was passed in April 2024 in response to longstanding concerns over possible ties between its China-based parent company ByteDance and the Chinese Communist Party and possible risks to U.S. user privacy (ByteDance and TikTok have publicly denied the validity of these concerns).

[READ MORE: Biden signs potential U.S. TikTok ban into law]

However, it is still unclear whether TikTok will actually cease operations in the U.S., even though as of Jan. 17, ByteDance had made no public effort to sell its U.S. business to American owners as would be required by the law to avoid a ban. 

President Biden has indicated that he will not make any effort to enforce a TikTok ban, which would go into effect on the last full day of his presidency, Jan. 19. At noon ET on Monday, Jan. 20, former president Donald Trump will assume the nation’s highest office for his second term.

Advertisement - article continues below
Advertisement

In a Jan. 17 post on his Truth Social social media network, Trump said he had a phone call with Chairman Xi Jinping of China that included discussion about TikTok. 

Although Trump and members of his cabinet publicly called for TikTok to divest its U.S. business or face a possible ban during his first term in 2020, he has publicly softened his position since then. In a March 2024 CNBC interview, Trump said a U.S. TikTok ban would just serve to make Facebook parent Meta bigger and called Facebook an "enemy of the people."

Even if Trump decided not to enforce the ban or issued some type of executive order to circumvent it, it is not clear whether U.S. Internet service providers or app store operators could still face fines or other legal action for supporting TikTok on their servers.

TikTok operates an e-commerce store in the U.S., partners with numerous U.S. retailers, and was ranked the second-most-used social platform by American teens by the Pew Research Center. In addition, a recent Numerator survey indicates that four-in-10 (41%) users say they would be upset if the app winds up being banned. That number increased to 57% of Gen Z users.

Editor’s Note: Chain Store Age will continue covering developments in TikTok’s U.S. operations.

X
This ad will auto-close in 10 seconds