“Unless the Biden Administration immediately provides a definitive statement to satisfy the most critical service providers assuring non-enforcement, unfortunately TikTok will be forced to go dark on January 19.” That was TikTok’s own wording, issued on the day the US Supreme Court turned down its challenge to a law forcing the app out of Chinese hands.
The warning was aimed at a very specific audience. Not users, and not creators, but the service providers that keep an app available, the app stores and the infrastructure behind the icon. Those companies faced penalties if they kept serving a banned app, and TikTok said the White House and the Department of Justice had given them no clarity. The platform counts “over 170 million Americans” as users.
What the court decided
The justices ruled unanimously that the law, formally the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, does not violate the First Amendment. In its unsigned opinion the court called the motive behind the law “decidedly content agnostic” and said Congress had decided divestiture was necessary because of “well-supported national security concerns regarding TikTok’s data collection practices and relationship with a foreign adversary.”
TikTok had argued that selling was not a workable option. Its Chinese parent, ByteDance, had also repeatedly rejected any suggestion that a sale was being considered, heise online reported.
What a ban would have done
The mechanics are less dramatic than “going dark” suggests, and that is the detail that matters. Once the ban took effect on Sunday, Google and Apple would be barred from distributing the app. Existing installs would probably keep working at first, but nobody could download TikTok anew. The app would also lose the infrastructure it runs on, according to heise.
Washington’s reason is data. The US government feared that China’s leadership could obtain information on American users through the app, or use it for propaganda. TikTok and ByteDance have denied both claims. Members of Congress got confidential briefings, heise noted, but the evidence was never made public.
A deadline one day before a handover
The timing was no accident. The deadline fell the day before a new president took office, and the White House said so openly: “Given the sheer fact of timing, this Administration recognizes that actions to implement the law simply must fall to the next Administration, which takes office on Monday.” It added that “TikTok should remain available to Americans, but simply under American ownership or other ownership that addresses the national security concerns identified by Congress.”
ABC, citing a person in the White House, reported that the outgoing administration would not enforce the ban, though heise pointed out that TikTok’s own plans and the reaction of the tech companies were still unclear. The law lets a president grant ByteDance a grace period for a sale, but only if there is a real path to a deal, demonstrable progress and legally binding agreements. None of those three conditions had been met, ABC summarized.
Donald Trump, who had spoken out against the ban, might consider an executive order to keep TikTok running, US media reported, but it was unclear whether such an order could survive a court challenge. Some influential lawmakers had already called for more time for ByteDance, according to Reuters. Meanwhile, DW noted, TikTok users were starting to move to other Chinese apps such as Lemon8 and RedNote.
Sources
- TikTok to 'go dark' in US unless government intervenes – DW
- TikTok: Biden administration won't enforce ban, let Trump decide – heise online
