The clock is ticking for TikTok

Time is running out for TikTok. Nearly eight months ago, Congress passed legislation that requires ByteDance, the social media platform’s parent company in China, to divest itself of the app by Jan. 19, 2025, or else face a ban within the entire United States. At the time, although the legislation passed by wide majorities (360-58 in the House and 79-18 in the Senate), most observers doubted that we would really see TikTok’s demise so soon. For more than two decades, the courts have been overwhelmingly friendly to Big Tech, buying its arguments that the only way to protect the First Amendment is to leave the internet essentially deregulated. Rather than seeking a buyer for TikTok then, ByteDance was determined to fight the ban in court.

Last week, its case ran into a brick wall at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which ruled unanimously in support of the legislation. “The First Amendment exists to protect free speech in the United States,” wrote Judge Douglas Ginsburg for the majority. “Here the Government acted solely to protect that freedom from a foreign adversary nation and to limit that adversary’s ability to gather data on people in the United States.”

Given that Congress expressly permitted TikTok to continue to operate if it could be separated from any hint of Chinese state control, the court ruled that the ban was “narrowly tailored” to serve legitimate national security interests, not an overreaching burden on free speech. ByteDance was left scrambling by the decision, applying for an emergency temporary stay so that it can appeal the case to the Supreme Court before the clock runs out a little more than five weeks from now.

Although it is highly unlikely the Supreme Court will reverse the decision, even one day’s delay could win TikTok the support of another powerful advocate: President-elect Donald Trump. During his first administration, it was Trump who led the charge against the dangers of TikTok, getting out in front of public opinion by issuing an executive order banning the app in August 2020, which was later struck down by the courts. More recently, though, Trump has flip-flopped on the issue, promising to “save” TikTok after a significant cadre of conservative influencers emerged on the app supporting his candidacy for a second term. In the increasingly politicized landscape of tech platforms, TikTok is now seen by many conservatives as a friendlier alternative than Meta’s Instagram, which stands to gain market share from any TikTok ban.

Of course, this is short-sighted thinking and says something about just how toxic American partisanship has become. Many on the right would rather advance the interests of an actual geopolitical enemy than allow a domestic political foe, in this case, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, to benefit from its defeat. Moreover, the past year has seen a growing wave of revelations about just how dangerous TikTok is, not merely to national security but also to the health of America’s youth. In August, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found TikTok guilty of promoting the lethal “blackout challenge” to young children. Then in October, more than a dozen state attorneys general filed a suit detailing how TikTok knowingly designed its product to be addictive and turned a blind eye to abusive and pedophilic content on the platform. While some other social media platforms are guilty of similar harms, TikTok is among the worst offenders and should have little claim to our nation’s sympathy.

That hasn’t stopped the company’s executives from trying to sway public opinion through a massive advertising blitz, framing itself as a friend of ordinary citizens and small businesses. The effort may be paying off, as a Pew survey showed a substantial decline in popular support for banning TikTok over the past year. This shift in public opinion may explain President-elect Trump’s own shift on the issue on the campaign trail, afraid as he was of alienating voters or key donors. ByteDance, for its part, is doing its best to portray last spring’s bipartisan legislation as something passed in a fit of legislative distemper that the American people should not stand for and a new Trump administration has a duty to overturn.

The reality, however, is that the TikTok drama highlights the importance of representative government and the rule of law. Public opinion is fickle and easily swayed by addictive algorithms and big-spending advertising campaigns. Individual elected leaders, like President-elect Trump, are also prone to change their minds under pressure. The courts were probably right to strike down his executive order against TikTok in 2020. But when Congress actually does its job, reflecting long and hard on a proposed policy in light of a comprehensive view of the national interest and careful consideration of the Constitution, and the president signs that policy into law, it’s not easy to reverse course, nor should it be. ByteDance should accept the verdict of the rule of law and find an American buyer for its product that will manage it in the best interests of the American people.