Some of the key developments as reported by the BBC :
- A TikTok ban in the US is set to go ahead on Sunday after the Supreme Court rejected an appeal
- What a ban looks like and how it would be enforced remains uncertain. The White House says it will leave enforcement to the incoming Trump administration.
- Justices ruled that the law passed by Congress asking the app’s Chinese owner to sell its stake or face a US ban did not violate free speech rights
- The legal drama stems from the US government’s national security concerns and TikTok’s ties to China
- Last year, ByteDance was ordered to sell the app to a US buyer or it would be banned by 19 January – that sale has not yet happened
- TikTok is one of the most popular short-form video apps in the world, and is a major part of a multi-billion dollar influencer economy
US content creators react to TikTok ban
If you type ‘TikTok ban’ into TikTok right now, creators with big and small followings are reacting to news of the incoming ban.
Father and son comedy duo Joe and Frank Mele – who run an account with over 30m followers – say they “don’t really know what [the ban] means for the future of TikTok” and will continue to post on the app while they still can.
“In case the ban comes quicker than we hope, we just wanted to say thank you,” they say in a video posted on Friday.
Other creators are following a trend of lip-syncing to a Family Guy quote or expressing their hope that YouTuber Mr Beast might “save TikTok” after he said he wanted to buy the app on X.
TikTok Supreme Court decision was ‘rushed’, former Obama advisor says
A former cybersecurity advisor to Barack Obama says the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold TikTok ban was “rushed”.
Timothy Edgar, a former ACLU lawyer who served on Obama’s National Security Council, helped submit a brief to the Supreme Court in support of TikTok’s appeal.
Speaking to Anita Anand on Radio 4’s PM programme, he said he was surprised with the unanimous decision and “frankly disappointed with the reasoning”.
Edgar argued that Americans “deserved a better process”, and alleged that the Supreme Court decision “ignores some of the more important questions that we tried to raise in our brief”.
“I thought this was a very important free speech case,” Edgar said. “I’ve called it the most important free speech case in a generation.”
The former cybersecurity official said that he though that there is little that Trump can do as president to overturn the decision.
“Congress enacted this law and only Congress can repeal it,” said Edgar, who expressed doubt that TikTok could be sold.
