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By Andrew Chung, John Kruzel and David Shepardson
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – TikTok warned on Friday that it would go dark in the United States on Sunday unless the administration of President Joe Biden gives assurances to companies such as Apple (NASDAQ:) and Google that it will not face enforcement actions when the ban begins.
The statement came hours after the Supreme Court upheld a law banning TikTok in the United States on national security grounds if its Chinese parent company ByteDance does not sell it. , puts the popular short-form video program on a path to obscurity in just two days.
The court’s 9-0 decision throws the social media platform – and its 170 million American users – into limbo, with their fate in the hands of Donald Trump, who has vowed to save TikTok after returning to office of the president on Monday.
“Unless the Biden Administration immediately issues a clear statement to the satisfaction of the most important service providers who are guaranteeing inactivity, TikTok will unfortunately have to go dark on January 19,” the said the company.
The White House declined to comment.
Apple, Alphabet (NASDAQ:)’s Google, Oracle (NYSE:) and others could face significant fines if they continue to provide services to TikTok after the ban takes effect.
The law was passed by a partisan majority in Congress last year and signed by Biden, although a growing group of lawmakers who voted for it now want to keep TikTok operating in the United States.
TikTok, ByteDance and other users of the app challenged the law, but the Supreme Court ruled that it did not violate the US Constitution’s First Amendment protection against government abridgment of speech. free as they claimed.
ByteDance did little to take down TikTok during the Sunday deadline set by the law. But the closure of the app may be temporary. Trump, who in 2020 tried to ban TikTok, said he plans to take action to save the app.
“My decision on TikTok will be made in the not too distant future, but I have to have time to evaluate this situation. Stay tuned!” Trump said in a social media post.
TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew plans to attend Trump’s second inauguration on Monday in Washington.
Trump said he and Chinese President Xi Jinping discussed TikTok by phone on Friday.
‘CONTROL OF OLE BOILERS’
For years, the Chinese owners of TikTok have raised concerns among US leaders, and the fight over TikTok has come at a time of growing trade tensions between the world’s largest economies.
Lawmakers and the Biden administration have said China could use TikTok to collect data on millions of Americans for abuse, recruiting and spying.
“TikTok’s status and potential to control foreign adversaries, as well as the vast amount of sensitive data collected by the platform, warrants a different treatment to address the government’s national security concerns, ” the Supreme Court said in an unrecorded opinion.
TikTok has become one of the most popular social media platforms in the United States, especially among young people who use it for short videos, including many who use it as a platform for small businesses. .
Some users were afraid that a ban might happen.
“Oh my god, I can’t speak,” said Lourd Asprec, 21, of Houston, who has amassed 16.3 million followers on TikTok and makes an estimated $80,000 a year on the platform. “I don’t even care if China steals my data. They can take all my information. Like, if anything, I’ll go to China and give them my data.”
The company’s powerful algorithm, its core asset, feeds individual users short videos tailored to their interests. The platform features a large collection of user-submitted videos, which can be viewed via a smartphone app or online.
As the January 19 deadline approached, millions of users jumped to other Chinese apps like RedNote, only to find they had to navigate through its Mandarin platform to start their feed.
“China is adapting to the decision in real time,” said Craig Singleton, a China expert at the think tank Foundation for Defense of Democracies, which briefed the case against TikTok. “Beijing is not just building infrastructure, but creating a system of language power to create global stories and influence the public.”
Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement that the ruling confirmed that the law protects US national security.
“Governments should not have unlimited access to Americans’ sensitive information,” Garland added.
IT’S HAPPENING NOW
The Biden administration has stressed that TikTok can continue to operate if it is freed from Chinese control. The White House said on Friday that Biden would not take any action to save TikTok.
Biden has not asked for the 90-day delay that is legally allowed.
“This decision will be made by the next president,” Biden told reporters.
Legal services that provide certain services to TikTok and other applications controlled by foreign adversaries including by offering it through app stores such as Apple and Google.
Google declined to comment on Friday. Apple and Oracle did not respond to requests for comment.
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said enforcement action “must fall to the next administration” while the Justice Department said “implementing and ensuring compliance with the law after you work on January 19 – it will be a playful process.”
TikTok said these statements “failed to provide the necessary clarification and assurance to service providers essential to maintaining TikTok’s availability to more than 170 million Americans.”
A viable buyer could still emerge, or Trump could invoke a law called the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, saying that keeping TikTok is good for national security.
Only one vendor has stood out so far – Frank McCourt, owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team, who said he believes TikTok is worth about $20 billion without its algorithm.
“Beijing needs TikTok more than Washington needs it,” said Michael Sobolik, a fellow and an expert on US-China relations at the Hudson (NYSE: ) think tank.
“With that power, Trump has a better chance of getting what he wants: the continued operation of TikTok in America without national security threats.”
