Posted in: Opinion, streaming, TV, TV | Tagged: bytedance, opinion, TikTok, trump

TikTok: Donald Trump Asks Supreme Court to Pause U.S. App Ban

In a filing to his high court earlier today, Donald Trump urged the U.S. Supreme Court to pause implementing next month's TikTok ban.

It appears Donald Trump had one helluva meeting with TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew earlier this month. On Friday, the incoming POTUS urged the Supreme Court to pause implementing a ban that's set to take effect on January 19, 2025, if owner ByteDance doesn't divest from the app. Last week, the high court announced that it would hear arguments on January 10th on the constitutionality of the federal law and if it is a restriction on the company's right to free speech under the First Amendment. Those supporting the law argue that TikTok is a security risk to the U.S., serving as a pipeline of data for the Chinese government.

"President Trump takes no position on the underlying merits of this dispute. Instead, he respectfully requests that the Court consider staying the Act's deadline for divestment of January 19, 2025, while it considers the merits of this case, thus permitting President Trump's incoming Administration the opportunity to pursue a political resolution of the questions at issue in the case," wrote D. John Sauer, Trump's lawyer and pick for U.S. solicitor general, in the filing – before deep-diving into the ego-stroking. "President Trump alone possesses the consummate dealmaking expertise, the electoral mandate, and the political will to negotiate a resolution to save the platform while addressing the national security concerns expressed by the Government—concerns which President Trump himself has acknowledged."

"The Supreme Court has an established record of upholding Americans' right to free speech. Today, we are asking the Court to do what it has traditionally done in free speech cases: apply the most rigorous scrutiny to speech bans and conclude that it violates the First Amendment," TikTok wrote in a statement released earlier this month, shortly after the news that an application for an emergency injunction had been filed, with ByteDance looking for the implementation of the law to be blocked until the high court has had time to assess the company's First Amendment claim. "The TikTok ban results in a massive and unprecedented censorship of over 170 million Americans on January 19, 2025. Estimates show that small businesses on TikTok would lose more than $1 billion in revenue, and creators would suffer almost $300 million in lost earnings in just one month unless the ban is halted."

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