In a close-to-deadline decision made Friday morning, the United States Supreme Court ruled unanimously to uphold a federal law that will ban TikTok beginning Sunday unless it’s sold by its China-based parent company.
“Congress has determined that divestiture is necessary to address its well-supported national security concerns regarding TikTok’s data collection practices and relationship with a foreign adversary,” the court said in an unsigned opinion, adding that the law “does not violate petitioners’ First Amendment rights.”
The decision came following the recent statements made by President-elect Donald Trump, who vowed that he could negotiate a solution, and the administration of President Joe Biden, which has signaled it won’t enforce the law beginning Sunday, his final full day in office, according to the Associated Press.
Ball State students have been reacting to the news.
“I believe the shutdown of TikTok is an infringement of people’s free speech,” fifth-year English major Lilly Elrod said. “I think it’s hypocritical to shut down an app because it’s owned by a Chinese country when our own social media apps that are owned in America still sell data to China. I don’t think that our Congress has our best interest at heart when doing this.”
Second-year English education major Ella Maxwell agreed it would be in the best interest of government officials to focus more on the nation’s growing housing crisis or school shooting rates.
“There are so many other things [the Supreme Court] could be worrying about," she said. [The TikTok ban] is genuinely just a thinly-veiled way for [the government] to take away our access to information and [connections] to other people."
At this time, it is unclear what will happen to TikTok when the ban takes place Sunday, whether it will still be usable or will be unavailable more immediately.
“I’m feeling pretty positive about the TikTok shutdown that is potentially coming on Sunday, just because… I’m so tired of being barraged with 800 million TikToks that I’m not going to download," fourth-year creative writing major Blake Murray said.
Without a sale to an approved buyer, as federal law mandates, app stores operated by Apple, Google and others will be barred from offering TikTok beginning on Sunday. Internet hosting services also will be prohibited from hosting TikTok.
This story will be updated as more information becomes available.
Contact the Ball State Daily News via email at editor@bsudailynews.com
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