TikTok

The app is set to be shut off in the US at midnight on Saturday after losing its appeal to the Supreme Court. TikTok president Blake Chandlee just sent this to advertisers:

We don’t know exactly what they discussed, but the US President-elect says it was a “very good” call. Until we hear otherwise from the Supreme Court or President Joe Biden, the TikTok ban is set to take effect on January 19th — one day before Trump’s inauguration. “It is my expectation that we will solve many problems together, and starting immediately,” says Trump.

The Supreme Court’s site has added text saying it “may announce opinions” at 10AM ET tomorrow. I’m going to be furious if we don’t find out the fate of TikTok two days before the scheduled ban. I will also grudgingly respect the top-tier troll effort.

In addition to Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and Tim Cook reportedly attending Trump’s inauguration on Monday, it now seems that Google’s Sundar Pichai will be attending as well.

It would suspend enforcement of the law for 60 to 90 days, extending the timeline for a sale, The Washington Post reports. Trump’s AG pick Pam Bondi also wouldn’t commit to enforcing the TikTok law. But either of those routes wouldn’t eliminate the risk of Apple and Google hosting the app on their app stores after January 19th.

“Under one scenario that’s been discussed by the Chinese government, Musk’s X — the former Twitter — would take control of TikTok US and run the businesses together, the people said,” Bloomberg reports.

Kevin O’Leary recently joined Frank McCourt’s bid to buy TikTok. Now, with TikTok facing a ban in one week, the Shark Tank host is playing golf with the President-elect. Hmm.

Tiffany Cianci was finishing a TikTok live stream to 70,000 people when we met in the elevator after a press conference. She was in good spirits even after camping out in her van outside the Supreme Court beginning at 2 AM. “I don’t see it as hopeless right now, and I don’t think that they’ve already decided,” she says. Creator and petitioner Tim Martin also feels “very excited and optimistic” after today’s oral arguments, saying their attorneys “did an incredible job.”

That’s a wrap until the justices issue their ruling (or a stay to keep the law from taking effect). TikTok and creators’ attorneys will be speaking at a press conference this afternoon, and we’re going to check out the scene outside the Supreme Court.

Those foreign-owned companies also collect plenty of data, Francisco argues, showing that Congress was really concerned with going after TikTok specifically since e-commerce apps are not part of the law.

TikTok lawyer Noel Francisco comes back for a brief rebuttal, and he’s pushing the court to stay the law even without making a determination about whether TikTok could succeed. This, obviously, would push its enforcement into the domain of President-elect Donald Trump, who has promised to save the app.

Go figure. She points out, however, that even if the president does choose not enforce the law, companies that don’t comply will still technically be breaking it. And, she adds, the statute of limitations is five years.

Prelogar says the court shouldn’t buy the argument that TikTok hasn’t been given enough time to sell, pointing to Musk’s acquisition of Twitter as a sign of how quickly deals can go through.

Kavanaugh asks whether third parties that could be punished under the law (like Apple and Google) could rely on a presidential promise not to enforce it. Prelogar says there would likely be “strong due process arguments” they could rely on to avoid enforcement under that promise. But pulling TikTok from app stores also might be the push China needs to do a sale, she adds.

In response to Justice Kavanaugh, Prelogar says Congress was clearly and “sincerely” motivated by data privacy concerns, and even if you discount the questions about propaganda and manipulation, that’s enough to make the law stand up. She says TikTok is totally off-base in claiming that motivation is “tainted” if the propaganda-related arguments don’t hold up.

That’s because the US’s point of view seems to be that the content may be different if TikTok weren’t owned by a Chinese company, she says. Prelogar says the law itself doesn’t dictate that TikTok produce a different mix of content after divestiture, it’s just about the potential for covert manipulation.

But she also takes note of the government’s argument that it’s also based on data security concerns. “You can’t really run their algorithm without sharing the very data that we are concerned about as a threat,” Sotomayor says, summarizing the government’s stance.

Justice Kagan asks about a Supreme Court ruling that Americans have a right to receive foreign propaganda. “It was focused only on foreign adversary control,” Prelogar says of the TikTok divest-or-ban law. Therefore, she argues, that ruling’s precedent shouldn’t apply. Kagan seems to disagree — saying the concerns about covert content manipulation clearly appear to be about content.

That’s according to Chief Justice Roberts, who provided a lighter moment amid the heavy questioning.