The new President-elect of the United States of America, Donald Trumpin an unexpected move, asked the Supreme Court to stay a law that threatens to impose a total ban on TikTok on American soil. This request relates directly to the debate on ByteDancethe Chinese company that owns the social network, and to legislative pressure to sell the application. If a solution is not found by January 19ththe ban will officially go into effect. At the heart of the dispute is the law known as Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Actdesigned to counter potential national security threats from applications controlled by foreign governments. TikTok, however, has challenged the constitutionality of the legislation, with a hearing scheduled for January 10 in the Supreme Court. Trump’s intervention reflects a new approach towards the Chinese app, considered a resource for freedom of expression and a tool for political connection.
The reasons why the postponement of the trial was requested
The appeal by Trump’s lawyers, presented to the US Supreme Court with this document, defines the January 19 deadline as an unfortunate coincidence that risks interfering with the future president’s management of foreign policy. In this case, the document drawn up by Trump’s lawyers reads:
This Court now faces the prospect of deciding extremely difficult questions on exactly such a “highly expedited basis.” Postponing this deadline would give the Court some breathing room to consider matters on a more measured schedule and provide President Trump’s new administration an opportunity to pursue a negotiated resolution to the conflict.
Without clarifying what precise strategies he intends to adopt, the lawyers argue that only Trump, with his negotiating experience and electoral mandate, would be able to find a solution that preserves TikTok, while addressing national security concerns. This personal connection with the platform is not secondary: Trump has over 14.7 million followers on TikToka public which, according to his lawyers, makes him «one of the most powerful, prolific and influential users of social media», which would allow the President-elect to understand the importance of the platform as a space for freedom of expression and political debate.
What happened to Trump’s doubts about TikTok?
Supporters of the ban, for their part, say that TikTok poses a real threat to national securityclaiming that the Chinese government could use the app to collect sensitive user data or spread propaganda in the United States. These fears are not new: during his first presidential term, Trump himself had already attempted to ban TikTokciting similar concerns. However, his recent election campaign marked a significant “change of direction”, if we can call it that. And this is evident not only from the request presented to the Supreme Court, but also from the campaign carried out by Trump during his run for the White House. In a post on Truth Social (the social platform launched by Trump in July 2022), for example, the future American President-elect had even urged his supporters to vote for him as the candidate to save TikTok in America using this thunderous statement:
FOR ALL THOSE WHO WANT TO SAVE TIK TOK IN AMERICA, VOTE TRUMP!
The arguments in support of the application, however, do not only come from politics. Several civil liberties groups, including theACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) and theEFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation), have filed legal documents in favor of TikTok. In fact, these groups believe that the American government has not provided concrete evidence of imminent threats or actual damage caused by the platform, claiming that «The Government presented no credible evidence of ongoing or imminent harm caused by TikTok».
