TikTok is Not For Sale in China: A Symbolic Liferaft for the U.S. and China after the Bush v. Gore Decision

Trump, who at one point promised to “save” TikTok (albeit with scant detail), said before the ruling on Friday that he had a “very good” call with China’s President Xi Jinping, including discussions about the app. After the ruling dropped, he wrote on Truth Social, “The Supreme Court decision was expected, and everyone must respect it. My decision on TikTok will be made in the not too distant future, but I must have time to review the situation.” Not exactly a resoundingly firm promise.

The Bush v. Gore ruling was not meant to have greater precedential value, but it is one-off and that is what happened. “But this will be a very important decision,” he said. “And it gives enormous power to Congress to act on data privacy questions.”

But to TikTok executives, that is merely a symbolic life raft, since ByteDance has consistently indicated that the platform, China’s first global social media hit, is not for sale. Furthermore, export control laws in China prevent TikTok’s algorithm from being sold unless Beijing regulators bless the transaction, something China experts have said the country is not likely to do.

“I mean, do we usually assume that the best solution for problematic speech is counter speech?” said Gorsuch, adding that TikTok has raised the possibility of incorporating a warning on its app about the risk of being manipulated by China.

U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, representing the federal government, quickly shot that down with this analogy: “Imagine if you walked into a store and I had a sign that said one of 1 million products in this store causes cancer,” she told the court. “That is not going to put you on notice about what product is actually jeopardizing your health.”

The Biden White House’s Decision on the Decline of ByteDance: “I’m gonna have to wait until the Supreme Court decide”

On Friday following the Supreme Court’s ruling, Biden White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement that it would be up to the incoming administration to implement the law. The administration knows that actions to implement the law must fall to the next administration, since it takes office on Monday.

All eyes are now on President-elect Donald Trump. He filed a brief with the Supreme Court ahead of last week’s oral arguments asking that the justices delay a ruling to provide him time for his administration to cut a “negotiated solution” that would resolve the national security concerns.

Under the law, the president can delay the ban for 90 days if progress has been made toward a sale away from ByteDance.

On Friday, Trump said on his social media platform that he hadn’t made a decision. “The Supreme Court decision was expected, and everyone must respect it. I have time to review the situation before making a decision on TikTok. Stay tuned!”

“When push comes to shove and these restrictions take effect, I think it will fundamentally change the landscape with respect to what ByteDance is willing to consider, and it might be just the jolt that Congress expected the company would need to actually move forward with the divestiture process,” she said.

The Successes of Running a Better World with a WikiTkoboscope and a More Open-World Platform

“I want to thank President Trump for his commitment to work with us to find a solution that keeps TikTok available in the United States,” Chew says in a video on the platform. “We are grateful and pleased to have the support of a President who truly understands our platform — one who has used TikTok to express his own thoughts and perspectives, connecting with the world and generating more than 60 billion views of his content in the process.”

Justice Department officials made strange statements after the ruling. Attorney General Merrick Garland praised the Supreme Court for letting the Justice Department “prevent the Chinese government from weaponizing TikTok to undermine America’s national security.” There will be a process over time that will play out after January 19 when the new law goes into effect.

A flurry of articles this week suggested Chinese officials are starting to entertain the idea of selling the app, at least some of which was thought to be possible with Musk possibly in on the act. The Chinese government and ByteDance haven’t commented on the reports that they’re taking steps towards a sale.

The company does not immediately respond to requests for comment, but it is rumored that they plan to shut down the app on Sunday, the deadline for an extension.

“The Solution that the President and Congress Decided to Decide” is Dramatic,” Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in a concurring opinion

“Without doubt, the remedy Congress and the President chose here is dramatic,” Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in a concurring opinion. “Whether this law will succeed in achieving its ends, I do not know. A foreign adversary may replace one lost application with another. As time passes and threats evolve, less dramatic and more effective solutions may emerge.”