TikTok ban upheld by U.S. Supreme Court — here's what it means for Canada
financialpost.comThe United States Supreme Court upheld a law banning TikTok on Friday, meaning the short video platform has until Sunday to shutter its U.S. operations or find a buyer. The law calling for the closure or sale of the Chinese-controlled social media app — which has more than one billion monthly active users worldwide, including 170 million in the U.S. and 14 million in Canada — was passed in April. Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court began hearing arguments from the company’s legal team, which was hoping to overturn the ban. Prior to Friday’s ruling, TikTok had insisted it is unwilling to sell and will shut down in the U.S. The Financial Post’s Yvonne Lau explains the ban and what it will mean for the millions who use the platform, both in the U.S. and in Canada.
In April, U.S. President Joe Biden signed a bipartisan bill into law that would see TikTok banned in the country unless its parent firm, ByteDance Ltd., a Chinese tech unicorn worth US$300 billion that is among the world’s most valuable private companies, gives up control within a year. American lawmakers have voiced growing concerns over TikTok’s threats to U.S. national security amid an intensifying U.S.–China tech war, with some in Washington arguing that TikTok could potentially funnel American user data to the Chinese government or that Beijing could use the app to spy or as an access point to embed Chinese malware on U.S. devices. TikTok has insisted that it has never provided user data to the Chinese government and would refuse to do so if asked, but that has not allayed concerns in the U.S.
TikTok’s legal team argued that a ban would have a “staggering” impact on the free speech of its American users, but the top court disagreed. “Congress has determined
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