SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
The fate of TikTok now in the hands of the U.S. Supreme Court. Lawyers for the video app argued before the Court yesterday and asked the justices to halt a law that could have the service banned in the U.S. in eight days. But the Justice Department says unless TikTok loses its Chinese owner, ByteDance, it must shut down in the U.S. NPR's Bobby Allyn's been covering it at the U.S. Supreme Court - joins us in our studios. Bobby, thanks so much for being with us.
BOBBY ALLYN, BYLINE: Morning, Scott.
SIMON: What did TikTok say?
ALLYN: TikTok's legal team said allowing the federal government to shut down the app would defy precedent. They called TikTok the modern public square, and they said forcing it offline would suppress the speech of 170 million Americans who use the app, as well as the company's own protected expression, meaning when TikTok curates what people see on the app, that that is actually a type of speech that would be suppressed by the ban. If the Supreme Court does not block the law, TikTok's lawyer said, Scott, the app will go dark next Sunday.
SIMON: And how did the government respond to the free speech argument?
ALLYN: Yeah. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar argued that Congress passed the TikTok divest or ban law as a way to address the app's national security problem. As long as data flows between Beijing and China, and as long as ByteDance controls TikTok's algorithm, she says Americans are just too exposed to the Chinese government. She argued that the problem isn't TikTok's foreign ownership. The problem is ownership by an enemy of the United States that, you know, wants to spy on Americans and create havoc. Here's Prelogar.
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ELIZABETH PRELOGAR: For the Chinese government to have this vast trove of incredibly sensitive data about them, I think, obviously exposes our nation as a whole to a risk of espionage and blackmail.
ALLYN: Yeah. In court, Prelogar said, I mean, think about it. Beijing has all of this information on millions of teenagers now. You know, maybe they don't want to do anything with it now but weaponize it later when some of these teens, say, you know, take jobs with the government or maybe join the military.
SIMON: Bobby, could you discern if the justices seem to be leaning one way or another?
ALLYN: Yeah. They had tough questions for both sides, Scott. But, you know, liberal and conservative justices were quite skeptical that TikTok's free speech would be more important than an overseas security threat. Chief Justice John Roberts said Congress had no problem with TikTok's free speech when lawmakers passed the law banning the app back in April. Roberts said the issue is and has always been ByteDance.
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JOHN ROBERTS: Congress is fine with the expression. They're not fine with a foreign adversary - as they've determined it is - gathering all this information about the 170 million people who use TikTok.
SIMON: So, Bobby, the ban's supposed to go into effect in eight days. What do you see between now and then?
ALLYN: Yeah. Well, we're waiting on two things from the court. First, whether they will delay the law's January 19 start date or not - that could come any day now. And secondly, whether the law will be upheld or struck down, the merits. Now, if the law is upheld, TikTok says its infrastructure will start to crumble. But the company is putting a lot of stock in President-elect Donald Trump. He has vowed to keep TikTok alive, and he will have quite a lot of latitude over TikTok's future. Even if the court blocks the TikTok ban, he could just tell his administration to not enforce it.
SIMON: And if the law's upheld, any indication ByteDance would sell TikTok?
ALLYN: Yeah, ByteDance has long maintained that TikTok is not for sale, and the U.S. government knows this quite well. But Solicitor General Prelogar told the justices that maybe if the law does take effect, China will change its stance, right? Maybe that will be the leverage China needs. It will just jolt them into finally saying, OK, finally, we will sell U.S. TikTok over to an American company. But we don't know yet, Scott, so we shall see.
SIMON: Time will tell. NPR's Bobby Allyn. Thanks so much.
ALLYN: Thanks, Scott. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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