LIVE: US Supreme Court Hears Oral Arguments in TikTok Ban or Sale Case | SCOTUS | ByteDance | N18G

Tue, 14 Jan 2025 12:22:18 +0000

LIVE: US Supreme Court Hears Oral Arguments in TikTok Ban or Sale Case | SCOTUS LIVE | ByteDance | USA Today | CNBC TV18
WASHINGTON, D.C. - U.S. Supreme Court hears oral arguments in a bid by TikTok and its China-based parent company, ByteDance, to block a law intended to force the sale of the short-video app by Jan. 19 or face a ban on national security grounds.
Live outside the U.S. Supreme Court, as it hears arguments over the fate of TikTok in the country. TikTok says it plans to shut down the social media site in the U.S. by Jan. 19 unless the court strikes down or otherwise delays the effective date of a law aimed at forcing TikTok’s sale by its Chinese parent company. TikTok and China-based ByteDance, as well as content creators and users, argue the law is a dramatic violation of the U.S. Constitution’s free speech guarantee. Working on a tight deadline, the justices also have before them a plea from President-elect Donald Trump, who has dropped his earlier support for a ban, to give him and his new administration time to reach a “political resolution” and avoid deciding the case.
TikTok and its parent company, Chinese-based ByteDance, asked the supreme court to review the case after a lower court ruled last month to uphold a law to ban the app in the US. That ban is scheduled to go into effect on 19 January, unless ByteDance sells TikTok’s assets to a non-Chinese company. While ByteDance has the option to divest, it claimed in a legal filing that divestiture “is simply not possible: not commercially, not technologically, not legally”.
Oral arguments are expected to last two hours, during which each side will be allotted time to make their case. In a filing, the court wrote that both sides should be prepared to argue whether the ban violates the first amendment.