(Corrects paragraph 5 to take away extraneous ‘not’)
By David Shepardson
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Division of Justice requested the Supreme Courtroom late on Friday to reject President-elect Donald Trump’s request to delay implementation of a legislation that may ban in style social media app TikTok or power its sale by Jan. 19.
Final week, Trump filed a authorized temporary arguing he ought to have time after taking workplace on Jan. 20 to pursue a “political resolution” to the difficulty. The courtroom is ready to listen to arguments within the case on Jan. 10.
The legislation, handed in April, requires TikTok’s Chinese language proprietor, ByteDance, to divest the platform’s U.S. belongings or face a ban. TikTok didn’t instantly remark.
The DOJ stated in its submitting that Trump’s request may solely be granted if ByteDance had established it was more likely to succeed on the deserves however the firm had not executed so.
DOJ stated nobody disputes China “seeks to undermine U.S. interests by amassing sensitive data about Americans and engaging in covert and malign influence operations.”
The federal government asserted that “no one can seriously dispute that (China’s) control of TikTok through ByteDance represents a grave threat to national security: TikTok’s collection of reams of sensitive data about 170 million Americans and their contacts makes it a powerful tool for espionage.”
Trump lawyer D. John Sauer wrote final week the president-elect “respectfully requests that the Court consider staying the Act’s deadline for divestment of January 19, 2025, while it considers the merits of this case, thus permitting President Trump’s incoming administration the opportunity to pursue a political resolution of the questions at issue in the case.”
TikTok on Friday urged the Supreme Courtroom to dam the legislation on free-speech grounds underneath the First Modification of the U.S. Structure. It stated Congress had not sought to ban Chinese language-owned apps like Shein or Temu, which strongly suggests “it targeted TikTok for its social-media content, not its data.”
If the courtroom doesn’t block the legislation by Jan. 19, new downloads of TikTok on Apple (NASDAQ:) or Google (NASDAQ:) app shops could be banned however present customers may proceed to entry the app. Companies would degrade over time and finally cease working as corporations shall be barred from offering assist.
Biden may lengthen the deadline by 90 days if he certifies ByteDance is making substantial progress towards a divestiture.
Trump’s assist for TikTok is a reversal from 2020, when he tried to dam the app in the USA and power its sale to American corporations due to its Chinese language possession.
