TikTok is asking the Supreme Court to put a pause on a law that requires that its Chinese-parent sell its U.S. operations or face a ban on tech platforms.
Courts have so far rejected TikTok’s claim that the law is in violation of the First Amendment. Its parent, ByteDance, has until Jan. 19 to divest TikTok in the U.S. or face a ban on app stores.
In its emergency application to the Supreme Court, TikTok says that the law “will shutter one of America’s most popular speech platforms the day before a presidential inauguration.”
In a statement, TikTok said, “The Supreme Court has an established record of upholding Americans’ right to free speech. Today, we are asking the Court to do what it has traditionally done in free speech cases: apply the most rigorous scrutiny to speech bans and conclude that it violates the First Amendment.”