Supreme Court agrees to hear challenge to TikTok ban

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Wednesday said it would take up TikTok’s appeal challenging a federal law that could ban the popular social media app by next month.

The court acted just a day after TikTok filed its appeal and will hear oral arguments on Jan. 10 before issuing a decision on whether to put the law on hold.

At issue is a bipartisan measure passed by Congress and signed into law by President Joe Biden that would go into effect on Jan. 19, the day before President-elect Donald Trump takes office.

The law, called the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, would require TikTok’s Chinese owner, ByteDance, to sell the platform to an American company or face a ban.

TikTok has challenged the law, saying it violates its free speech rights under the First Amendment.

In the order announcing it would take up the case, the court did not provisionally block the law.

“We believe the Court will find the TikTok ban unconstitutional so the over 170 million Americans on our platform can continue to exercise their free speech rights,” a company spokesman said in a statement.

The quick decision to take up the case meant the court has not yet heard from the Justice Department on its legal arguments in support of the law.

By hearing the argument on Jan. 10, the court has potentially given itself time to decide the case at an unusually fast pace before the law is due to go in effect and before Trump takes office.

In a lower court, the Justice Department has defended the law on national security grounds, focusing on concerns about the Chinese government’s potential to influence the company.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld the law, finding that the government’s national security justifications, including concerns that the Chinese government could access data about American users and potentially manipulate content on the app, were legitimate.

Trump, after trying to ban TikTok in his first term, has changed his tune. On Monday he said he had “warm spot” in his heart for the platform and met with the company’s CEO.