(Corrects paragraph 5 by removing extra “not”)
David Shepardson
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Justice Department late on Friday asked the Supreme Court to reject President-elect Donald Trump’s request to delay implementation of a law that would ban the popular social media app TikTok or force its sale by Jan. 19.
Trump filed a legal brief last week arguing that he should have time after taking office on Jan. 20 to seek a “policy solution” to the problem. The court is scheduled to hear arguments in the case on January 10.
A law passed in April requires TikTok’s Chinese owner, ByteDance, to sell the platform’s U.S. assets or face a ban. TikTok did not immediately comment.
The Justice Department said in a statement that Trump’s request could only be granted if ByteDance determined it was likely to succeed on the merits, but the company did not do so.
The Justice Department said there is no dispute that China “seeks to undermine U.S. interests by collecting sensitive data on Americans and engaging in covert and harmful influence operations.”
The government said that “no one can seriously dispute that (China’s) control of TikTok through ByteDance poses a serious national security threat: TikTok’s collection of large amounts of sensitive data on 170 million Americans and their contacts makes it a powerful tool for espionage.”
Trump lawyer D. John Sauer wrote last week that the president-elect “respectfully requests that the court consider delaying the Act’s January 19, 2025 deadline for asset sales while he considers the merits of this case, thereby giving President Trump’s incoming administration an opportunity to seek a political solution to the issues considered in the case.”
TikTok on Friday called on the Supreme Court to block its First Amendment free speech law. It said Congress did not seek to ban Chinese-owned apps like Shein or Temu, strongly suggesting that “it targeted TikTok for its social media content, not data.”
If the court does not block the law by January 19, new TikTok downloads on the Apple (NASDAQ:) or Google (NASDAQ:) app stores will be prohibited, but existing users will be able to continue accessing the app. Services will degrade over time and eventually stop working as companies are prohibited from providing support.
Biden could extend the deadline by 90 days if he confirms that ByteDance has made significant progress in selling assets.
Trump’s support for TikTok is a reversal from 2020, when he tried to block the app in the US and force it to be sold to US companies because it was owned by China.