When will TikTok be banned in the United States?
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TikTok’s fate hangs in the balance between US lawmakers as President-elect Donald Trump has asked the Supreme Court to block a looming ban on the video-sharing platform, while many of his Republican allies have urged the opposite. Diverging views raise the stakes for the court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, as it prepares to decide the fate of the app on Friday, January 10.
But why has the ban been proposed in the first place, when could it be introduced, and is there any way it could be avoided?. Friday’s case will see arguments made for free speech rights, with others focusing predominantly on national security concerns.
Apprehensions have been raised among US policymakers about the potential misuse of personal data and the risk of espionage or other malicious activities. “This is the most significant free speech case in at least a generation," said Timothy Edgar, a former US national security and intelligence official who has worked in both Republican and Democratic presidential administrations.
"If we consider that there are 170 million active monthly users of TikTok in the United States, the volume of free speech at risk is the largest of any Supreme Court case in American history," added Edgar, who now teaches cybersecurity at Brown University and joined a brief backing TikTok in the case.
