US Supreme Court upholds TikTok ban law

The US Supreme Court has ruled that TikTok will be banned from Sunday if it is not sold by its parent company.

Joe Biden said he will not enforce the ban for his few remaining hours in office, leaving Donald Trump to make the final decision when he enters the White House on Monday.

“The Supreme Court decision was expected, “ the President-elect commented in a post on Truth Social, “and everyone must respect it. My decision on TikTok will be made in the not too distant future, but I must have time to review the situation. Stay tuned!”

Following the ruling, the White House released a statement saying that the platform should remain available to Americans “but simply under American ownership or other ownership that addresses the national security concerns identified by Congress in developing this law.”

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) commented on the Supreme Court’s decision, calling it “incredibly disappointing” and based on “fear-mongering and speculation.”

“By refusing to block this ban,” said Patrick Toomey, deputy director of ACLU’s National Security Project, “the Supreme Court is giving the executive branch unprecedented power to silence speech it doesn’t like, increasing the danger that sweeping invocations of ‘national security’ will trump our constitutional rights.”

The Supreme Court was making the decision whether to overturn the ban after appeals from TikTok's lawyers as well as various creators, after the app’s owners, Bytedance, repeatedly said they wouldn’t sell it.

However, the US’s top judges decided to stick with the original ban.

On Sunday, TikTok could pull itself from the US market, as TikTok’s lawyer said in a Supreme Court hearing last week.

If it doesn’t, and Donald Trump decides to uphold the ban, companies like Apple and Google would take it off their app stores, preventing users from downloading or updating it.

If Trump does not have the power to overturn the ban, he may try to undermine it by saying he won’t enforce it.