US President-elect Donald Trump urged the Supreme Court to delay the upcoming ban-or-divest law for TikTok.
According to CNN, Trump lawyers in a legal brief filed in the court on Friday, December 27, 2024, say that the 78-year-old "opposes banning TikTok" and "seeks the ability to resolve the issues at hand through political means once he takes office."
Trump suggested the court pause the effective date of the ban, which is January 19, 2025, “to allow his incoming administration to pursue a negotiated resolution that could prevent a nationwide shutdown of TikTok, thus preserving the First Amendment rights of tens of millions of Americans while also addressing the government’s national security concerns.”
“There are valid concerns that the act may set a dangerous global precedent by exercising the extraordinary power to shut down an entire social-media platform based, in large part, on concerns about disfavoured speech on that platform,” he further stated in the brief.
Meanwhile, the Biden administration and a bipartisan group of ex-government officials opposed Trump’s demand and asked the highest court to uphold the ban, arguing that TikTok poses a “grave” threat to national security.
This means that currently a big debate is happening in the US Supreme Court over the TikTok ban, as one side is concerned about national security while the other side believes that the ban would affect the free speech of the 170 million Americans who use the app.
