The TikTok Law, PAFACA, and the Future of the Social Media App: How Does the High Court Overturn the State of the Union?
TikTok claims that its data collection practices are not different from those of the leading US social media apps. TikTok’s legal team argues that forcing the company to close up shop in the U.S. represents an unprecedented government suppression of free speech.
If the court allows the ban to go ahead—and Trump doesn’t find a way to stop it—the move will be an unprecedented technological clampdown in the country.
PAFACA doesn’t require anyone to uninstall TikTok from their phones. It doesn’t say TikTok should stop working in the US. It tries to make TikTok harder to use over time, and by preventing companies from providing services that would help it keep working and loading videos.
At stake are the app’s estimated 170 million users in the U.S., the future of a multibillion-dollar social media wunderkind, and the clash of free expression in the digital age with the threat China poses to the nation’s security.
Other middle-ground rulings are also possible. For instance, the Supreme Court could quibble with how the lower court reached its decision upholding the law and order the court to revise its opinion.
There’s nothing left for Trump if the court overturns the law. On the other hand, if the high court upholds the law, Trump has a number of options, including instructing his administration to not enforce it while he works on a deal.
While he is the incoming president, Trump wrote his December brief as a private citizen. At the time, he did not hold any executive powers and he cited no legal authority in making his request.
TikTok: Selling its U.S. Enterprise to an American Company or Group of Investors in the Light of Trump’s High-Censorship Decision
The lower court’s ruling that upheld the law agreed that it had implications for the First Amendment. The opinion believed that blocking China from being able to possibly censor Americans’ speech was in line with the spirit of the First Amendment.
Donald Trump made his TikTok position official recently and called on the Supreme Court to delay any ruling until he enters office and can help negotiate a solution. Trump is optimistic he can lean into his deal-making skills and cut an agreement that would lead to TikTok’s U.S. enterprise being purchased by an American company or group of investors.
Other creators on the app say that TikTok needs to double down on competing video services if it wants to survive in the United States.
While such horse-trading remains speculative, national security experts in touch with Chinese regulators have told NPR that Chinese officials appear to be warming up to this possibility.
Yet some analysts say it is possible that China will agree to the sale of TikTok’s U.S. business if the country can get something out of it, like trade concessions from the incoming Trump administration.
