TikTok is one of the most popular apps in the United States, and the Supreme Court may allow lawmakers to ban it. TikTok ban betting odds suggest a 57% chance of a ban occurring.
About three out of every five U.S. adults under 30 use TikTok, and many Americans get their news from it. TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, is a Chinese company with privacy rules that fall short of U.S. requirements. The app’s data-harvesting and potential influence campaigns on young Americans led politicians across the political spectrum to consider banning the app.
In April 2024, President Biden signed a bipartisan bill that would force ByteDance to sell TikTok or prohibit TikTok from operating in the United States. TikTok’s challenge of that bill became a fast track through the judicial system to the Supreme Court less than a year later.
That quick pace isn’t coincidental. The ban-or-sale law goes into effect on Jan. 19, 2025. Unless the Court grants an injunction, the Supreme Court has nine days to issue a ruling preventing TikTok’s ban.
TikTok Supreme Court case summary
Prediction Market Prices: On Jan. 8, commercial prediction market Kalshi gave the Supreme Court a 34% chance of ruling in favor of TikTok. Traders on crypto prediction market Polymarket thought there was a 47% chance that the U.S. would ban TikTok in 2025.
Quick Background: Shortly after TikTok launched in 2017, politicians from across the political spectrum considered the app a national security risk. President Trump considered banning TikTok in July 2020. In April 2024, President Biden signed a bill that required ByteDance to sell TikTok or face a ban in the United States. TikTok’s fight against that law brought it to its Jan. 10 Supreme Court hearing.
Constitutional Concern: The Supreme Court will decide whether the 2024 law banning TikTok is constitutional. This case will place the First Amendment guaranteeing free speech at the center of the case.
The Supreme Court’s decision will also determine how much power the U.S. government has to regulate social media companies in general. In an interview with Roll Call, University of Minnesota Law School professor Alan Rozenshtein wondered “…if the government can’t regulate a social media company given the profound national security threat in this case, when can it regulate a social media company?”
What led up to the TikTok case
TikTok’s American legal troubles began before the ban-or-sell law. In 2019, TikTok settled a lawsuit for violating child privacy laws for $5.7 million. TikTok didn’t get permission from its users under 13 before collecting their personal data. The company also failed to get parental consent and notify parents about the data TikTok was collecting.
Lawmakers became increasingly concerned about China’s data collection. China influences its private companies’ decisions, meaning data collected by private Chinese companies can be collected, analyzed, and used by the Chinese government. In August 2020, President Trump signed an executive order prohibiting “transactions” with ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company.
The news got worse in December 2022 when FBI Director Christopher Wray warned that TikTok could be used for “influence operations.” Government employees were required to delete TikTok from their phones in February 2023.
In March 2024, House Representatives introduced a bipartisan bill to either force ByteDance to sell TikTok or have TikTok banned in the United States. President Biden signed the bill into law the next month. TikTok and a group of its users filed separate lawsuits challenging the bill, and the legal battle began.
How the lawsuit played out
ByteDance sued U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland on May 7, 2024. Since TikTok’s ban-or-sell issue was a federal issue, it went straight to the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. In June, TikTok submitted its briefs to the Court. The Court scheduled oral arguments for Sep. 16. On Dec. 6, the Court ruled against TikTok.
After its loss, TikTok submitted its appeal to the Supreme Court. TikTok appealed on Dec. 16, and the Supreme Court issued a writ of certiorari only two days later. The Supreme Court scheduled oral arguments for Jan. 10, nine days before ByteDance’s deadline to sell TikTok.
TikTok’s case was fast-tracked at the appellate level. Now that it’ll be heard at the Supreme Court on a similarly accelerated timeline, TikTok is on track for a clear answer about its future before the ban-or-sale deadline.
