The fate of the popular social media platform TikTok hangs in the balance as the U.S. Supreme Court is set to meet Friday in a case that pits arguments of free speech against national security concerns.
TikTok has more than 170 million American users. But its China-based parent company, Bytedance, has raised concerns domestically about Chinese Communist Party involvement in the company and its user data.
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Congress passed a bipartisan bill into law in April of last year that banned TikTok from operating in the United States, citing national security concerns. The legislation required TikTok to either divest from ByteDance, sell the platform to a U.S.-owned company, or face a shutdown on Jan. 19.
TikTok has since sued over the move, citing First Amendment protections. But with that Jan. 19 deadline quickly approaching, it's now up to the Supreme Court to decide whether creators will have to find a new platform to share content.
"We just have an opposition to foreign control of communications," said Meg Reiss, CEO of SolidIntel Inc. "And with TikTok, that also has a lot of implications for permanent outside control of U.S. data."
However, TikTok argues that the government has not produced any evidence that the app is a national security threat, while also claiming the law violates the constitutional right to free speech.
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President-elect Donald Trump, meanwhile, who has flipped his views on a TikTok ban over the years, recently filed a brief with the Supreme Court saying the First Amendment implications of a ban would be "sweeping and troubling."
The Supreme Court says the parties will be arguing the following question: Does the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, as applied to petitioners, violate the First Amendment?
A federal appeals court previously upheld the law. But it remains unclear whether Supreme Court justices will agree with the lower court, or move to allow TikTok to remain operational in the U.S.
