The court case at issue regarding TikTok: TikTok, Inc. v. Garland

- Oyez. 

In response to national security concerns about Chinese influence over TikTok, both the Trump and Biden administrations attempted various measures to address these risks, including attempted forced divestiture and transaction bans. After lengthy negotiations over TikTok’s proposed National Security Agreement proved unsuccessful, Congress passed a law in 2024 requiring “foreign adversary controlled applications” (specifically including TikTok) to divest from foreign ownership or face effective shutdown through prohibitions on U.S. companies providing hosting and distribution services. The law takes effect on January 19, 2025, though companies can avoid the prohibitions by completing a qualified divestiture that eliminates foreign adversary control and operational relationships.

Three sets of petitioners (ByteDance/TikTok, Based Politics, and eight individual TikTok creators) filed constitutional challenges to the Act in May 2024, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit concluded that the Act survived constitutional scrutiny.

- Scotusblog.

The law at the center of the case is the Protecting Americans from Foreign Controlled Applications. Passed in 2024 to address national security concerns, the law bars the use of apps controlled by “foreign adversaries” of the United States, including China. More specifically, the law defines apps controlled by foreign adversaries to include any app run by TikTok or ByteDance. The law makes it illegal for U.S. companies to provide services to distribute, maintain, or update TikTok unless the app’s Chinese parent company sells it. This means, as ABC News reported on Thursday, that app stores and internet hosting services would be exposed to liability if they continued to provide services to TikTok after Jan. 19.

TikTok, ByteDance, and a group of TikTok users went to federal court in Washington, D.C., where they argued that the law violates the First Amendment. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit disagreed. Senior Judge Douglas Ginsburg explained that the law was “carefully crafted to deal only with control by a foreign adversary” and “part of a broader effort to counter a well-substantiated national security threat posed by the People’s Republic of China.

- Wikipedia. 

TikTok, Inc. v. Garland, was a United States Supreme Court case brought by ByteDance Ltd. and TikTok on the constitutionality of the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act (PAFACA) based on the Freedom of Speech Clause of the First Amendment, the Bill of Attainder Clause of Article One, Section Nine, and the Due Process Clause and Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment.