The Supreme Court will hear two hours of oral arguments on Jan. 10 in TikTok’s appeal to block enforcement of a federal law that would require TikTok to shut down in the United States unless its parent company can sell off the U.S. company by Jan. 19.
In a one-page unsigned order issued on Wednesday morning, the justices agreed to take up the dispute and fast-track the briefing schedule for oral arguments early next year. The law will remain in place while the justices consider TikTok’s request, as well as a separate request filed by TikTok users.
TikTok and its parent company, ByteDance, came to the Supreme Court on Monday, asking the justices to temporarily block enforcement of the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act. The law – which Congress enacted earlier this year and the president signed in April – identifies China and three other countries as “foreign adversaries” of the United States and bans the use of apps controlled by those countries. Unless the justices stepped in, the companies contended in their 41-page filing, the law will “shutter one of America’s most popular speech platforms the day before a presidential inauguration.”
TikTok, which has roughly 170 million users in the United States and more than a billion worldwide, ByteDance, and the TikTok users had first filed challenges to the law in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
But that court rejected TikTok’s argument that the law violates the Constitution, explaining that the law was the “culmination of extensive, bipartisan action by the Congress and by successive presidents.” The law, Senior Judge Douglas Ginsburg stressed, was “carefully crafted to deal only with control by a foreign adversary, and it was part of a broader effort to counter a well-substantiated national security threat posed by the People’s Republic of China.”
And after the D.C. Circuit turned down a request to put the law on hold to give TikTok time to seek review in the Supreme Court, TikTok and its users asked the Supreme Court to intervene – and to do so quickly. Represented by Noel Francisco, who served as the U.S. solicitor general during the first Trump administration, TikTok noted that because President-elect Donald Trump and his aides “have voiced support for saving TikTok,” a “modest delay in enforcing” the law will give both the justices time to review the issues presented by the case and the new administration an opportunity to weigh in—“before this vital channel for Americans to communicate with their fellow citizens and the world is closed.”
Citing the need to “coordinate with their service providers to perform the complex task of shutting down the TikTok platform only in the United States” if the Supreme Court declines to intervene, TikTok asked the justices to act on its request by Jan. 6. The company also suggested that the justices could treat its request as a petition for review and take up the case now.
On Wednesday morning the justices agreed to weigh in – and, in a relatively unusual move that likely reflects the time-sensitive nature of the dispute, did so without first asking the Biden administration to respond. Both sides will file an opening brief by 5 p.m. on Dec. 27, followed by reply briefs by 5 p.m. on Jan. 3.
