What to watch for as tech-averse Supreme Court weighs historic ban on TikTok

The only branch of the federal government without a social media presence will weigh the fate of one of the nation’s most popular video-sharing apps on Friday, delving into a viral fight over whether TikTok’s ties to China threaten national security.

The only branch of the federal government without a social media presence will weigh the fate of one of the nation’s most popular video-sharing apps on Friday, delving into a viral fight over whether TikTok’s ties to China threaten national security. The Supreme Court will hear more than two hours of arguments over whether a ban on the platform, approved in April with bipartisan support, can be squared with the First Amendment. If at least five justices believe that it can, TikTok would either need to find a new owner or shut down in the US on January 19. TikTok, which boasts an estimated 170 million users, will argue before a Supreme Court that is famously technology-averse – much of its work is still done on paper – and that tends to defer to the White House and Congress on national security matters. But the app’s supporters say the importance of free speech outweighs “speculative” fears about data collection and content manipulation by a foreign adversary. In recent years, the high court has tended to gingerly side with the social media behemoths that have come before it, delivering wins for the industry but leaving fundamental questions unresolved about what the Founding Fathers might have thought about global platforms that bring millions of eyeballs to quirky cat videos but also misinformation and hate speech. At times, the court has approached the evolving technology with a dose of humility. “We really don’t know about these things,” Justice Elena Kagan quipped during arguments in a 2023 case about whether Twitter and other platforms should be shielded from legal liability for their content curation.