Trump's U-turn on the banning of TikTok
2 Jan 2025
In an about turn, Donald Trump, who attempted to ban TikTok with a signed executive order during his first presidency, has asked the Supreme Court to halt a law that could led to the banning of the app in the United States (US) until he takes office.
Source: © The Economic Times The Econbomic Times President-elect Donald Trump is making a U-turn on banning TikTok in the US
The president-elect states this will give him time to negotiate a deal to allow the app to remain in the US.
His friend of the court brief states that he opposes the banning of TikTok at this time in the US and “seeks the ability to resolve the issues at hand through political means once he takes office”.
Passed earlier this year The Protecting Americans From Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act will come into effect on 19 January.
This is the day before Trump returns to office.
While Trump is not a party in the case, his position may carry significant weight with the justices.
The Act prohibits app stores and websites from distributing TikTok unless it is sold by TikTok's Chinese owner, ByteDance to an American company by 19 January or face a ban.
This about turn of Trump shows just how significant ByteDance’s efforts have been to forge inroads with Trump and his team during the presidential campaign.
According to the The Guardian Trump met with TikTok CEO, Shou Zi Chew in December.
This was just hours after he expressed” he had a “warm spot” for the app and that he favoured allowing TikTok to keep operating in the US for at least a little while”.
Trump adds that he had received billions of views on the social media platform during his presidential campaign.
The First Amendment question
While Trump acknowledges the concerns his administration had also raised about the platform in 2020 in his brief, he states that the “unfortunate timing” of the law’s effective date “interferes” with his ability to “manage the United States’ foreign policy and to pursue a resolution to both protect national security and save a social-media platform that provides a popular vehicle for 170 million Americans to exercise their core First Amendment rights”.
CNN quotes Trumps stating that delaying the law’s effective date, could “obviate the need for this court to decide the historically challenging First Amendment question.”
Free speech advocates
The Supreme Court is slated to hear arguments about the law's constitutionality on 10 January.
Congress passed the measure over the lawmakers' concerns that the country’s 170 million TikTok users’ data could be accessed by the Chinese government and used to sway public opinion on the US elections.
Free speech advocates say the US law against TikTok evokes the censorship regimes put in place by US authoritarian enemies.
TikTok and a group of content creators have stated that the law violates the First Amendment and have asked the Supreme Court to strike down the law.
In its brief to the court, TikTok says this is an attempt by the federal government to shut down “one of the most significant speech platforms in America".
It added lawmakers were required by the First Amendment to consider other options, such as disclosures about the company’s ownership.
“History and precedent teach that, even when national security is at stake, speech bans must be Congress’s last resort.”
Groups advocating for First Amendment protections include the American Civil Liberties Union and the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University.
The lawmakers
The justice department, in a position supported by most US lawmakers, says Chinese control of TikTok poses a continuing threat to national security.
President Joe Biden’s administration and a bipartisan group of ex-government officials, including previous Trump employees, have urged the Supreme Court to uphold the ban on TikTok.
This group includes Jeff Sessions, Trump’s first attorney general, and Ajit Pai, the Trump-appointed chairman of the Federal Communications Commission from 2017 to 2021 as well as former Vice President Mike Pence.
Launched by Trump’s first-term vice president in 2021, Advancing American Freedom, a political advocacy group, also submitted a brief in which it described TikTok as “digital fentanyl” and a “technological weapon”.
The group told the Supreme Court, “The First Amendment is not, and should not be read as, a means of granting the Chinese government the power to do what the American government could not: manipulate what Americans can say and hear."
Setting a troubling global precedent
In his friend-of-the-court brief, Trump says the national security concerns driving the law “appear to be significant and pressing,” but argues that allowing the law to take effect “risks inadvertently setting a troubling global precedent”.
He comments on the issue saying it presents a “novel, difficult, and significant tension between national security concerns and the free speech interests of over 170 million ordinary Americans”.
The brief goes on to state that the court should be deeply concerned about setting a precedent that could “create a slippery slope toward global government censorship of social media speech.
“The power of a Western government to ban an entire social-media platform with more than 100 million users, at the very least, should be considered and exercised with the most extreme care -- not reviewed on a 'highly expedited basis.'”
D. John Sauer, Trump's lawyer who is also the president-elect's pick for U.S. solicitor general, is quoted by Reuters saying Trump takes no position on the underlying merits of this dispute.
"Instead, he respectfully requests that the Court consider staying the Act's deadline for divestment of 19 January 2025, while it considers the merits of this case, thus permitting President Trump's incoming administration the opportunity to pursue a political resolution of the questions at issue in the case.”
TikTok ban in india
In June 2020 TikTok was banned in India following a military clash along the India-China border where 20 Indian and four Chinese soldiers were killed. (TikTok is not a once-off case, to date India has banned over 500 Chinese apps.)
Banning the app the Indian government cited privacy concerns and said that Chinese apps pose a threat to India’s sovereignty and security.
At the time, India had about 200 million TikTok users. Most of them moved onto other apps saying it was no big deal.
However, the Indian situation was not the same as the current situation in the US. In India, TikTok did not go to court. The US is also a bigger revenue market for the app than in India.
Also, the First Amendment in America is fairly strong so it will not be as easy to ban the app as it was in India.
Apart from India, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nepal have banned TikTok.
The European Union's European Parliament, European Commission and the EU Council have banned TikTok on staff devices while Australia
has banned TikTok from devices issued by the federal government.
TikTok is also banned on government phones in Belgium, France, New Zealand, the UK, and Canada.
About Danette Breitenbach
Danette Breitenbach is a marketing & media editor at Bizcommunity.com. Previously she freelanced in the marketing and media sector, including for Bizcommunity. She was editor and publisher of AdVantage, the publication that served the marketing, media and advertising industry in southern Africa. She has worked extensively in print media, mainly B2B. She has a Masters in Financial Journalism from Wits.Related
