Takeaways from the Supreme Court’s TikTok decision and what it may mean for the First Amendment

The Supreme Court’s remarkably speedy decision Friday to allow a controversial ban on TikTok to take hold will have a dramatic impact on the tens of millions of Americans who visit the app every day and broad political implications for President-elect Donald Trump.

The Supreme Court’s remarkably speedy decision Friday to allow a controversial ban on TikTok to take hold will have a dramatic impact on the tens of millions of Americans who visit the app every day and broad political implications for President-elect Donald Trump. But the court’s unsigned opinion and two concurrences also revealed deeper divisions on the court over how the First Amendment applies to social media. The high court, which has generally sided with First Amendment interests for decades, brushed aside concerns TikTok raised about the ban trampling on free speech rights. The court also quickly dispensed with concerns the Biden administration raised about the possibility of covert content manipulation by the Chinese government. First Amendment groups siding with TikTok warned that the ruling could have deeper ramifications. “Make no mistake, by allowing the ban to go into effect, the Supreme Court has weakened the First Amendment and markedly expanded the government’s power to restrict speech in the name of national security,” said Jameel Jaffer, executive director of the Knight First Amendment Institute. “Its implications for TikTok may be limited, but the ruling creates the space for other repressive policies in the future.” The ruling came days after the justices heard oral arguments in another important First Amendment case challenging a Texas law that requires age verification for pornography sites. A majority of the justices signaled in that case they were inclined to ultimately uphold the law.