WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to suspend a federal law on TikTok that could stop the popular social media app from operating or force its sale, arguing that it should have time after taking office to seek a “political resolution” to the case.
TikTok and its owner ByteDance are fighting to keep the popular app online in the United States after Congress in April approved a ban on it unless the app’s Chinese parent company sells it by January 19.
The platform and the company tried to overturn the law, and the Supreme Court agreed to review the case. But if the court does not rule in favor of ByteDance and there is no divestment, the application could be effectively banned in the United States on January 19, the day before Trump’s inauguration.
“This case presents an unprecedented, new and difficult tension between free speech rights on the one hand and foreign policy and national security concerns on the other,” Trump said Friday in a filing.
“Such a suspension would provide President Trump with the vital opportunity to seek a political solution that could avoid the need for the Supreme Court to decide these constitutionally significant questions,” the document added.
Free speech advocates separately told the Supreme Court on Friday that the US law against Chinese-owned TikTok evokes censorship regimes implemented by authoritarian enemies of the United States.
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Trump indicated earlier this week that he was in favor of TikTok continuing to operate in the United States at least for some time, saying it had received billions of views on the social media platform during his presidential campaign.
The US Department of Justice has argued that Chinese control of TikTok poses an ongoing threat to national security, a position supported by a majority of US lawmakers.
TikTok says the Justice Department misrepresented the social media app’s ties to China, arguing that its content recommendation engine and user data are stored in the United States on cloud servers operated by Oracle Corp, while decisions Content moderation measures that affect US users are also taken in the United States.
