The Big Question At The Heart Of The TikTok Case

Forbes

At the Supreme Court argument, the justices homed in on one key question: Can Congress ban a speech platform to stop the Chinese government from manipulating it?  Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/emilybaker-white/2025/01/10/the-big-question-at-the-heart-of-the-tiktok-case/  Subscribe to FORBES: https://www.youtube.com/user/Forbes?sub_confirmation=1  Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:  https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript  Stay Connected Forbes newsletters: https://newsletters.editorial.forbes.com Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes More From Forbes:  http://forbes.com  Forbes covers the intersection of entrepreneurship, wealth, technology, business and lifestyle with a focus on people and success.

Transcript

00:00Today on Forbes, the fate of TikTok is with the Supreme Court.

00:05And could Elon Musk buy it?

00:08Earlier this week, Bloomberg, citing unnamed people familiar with the matter, reported

00:13that Chinese government officials have considered selling TikTok's U.S. operations to Elon

00:18Musk if the Supreme Court does not stop a ban from going through on January 19th.

00:23Though, the people noted the deliberations are preliminary, and that Chinese officials

00:28prefer to keep TikTok under the ownership of China-based developer ByteDance.

00:33Meanwhile, when asked about the Bloomberg report, ByteDance told Forbes it, quote,

00:38can't be expected to comment on pure fiction.

00:42The world's richest person would likely be looking at a price tag similar to what he

00:46paid for Twitter.

00:48Wedbush analyst Dan Ives wrote in a Tuesday note to clients that TikTok parent ByteDance

00:54would likely look for a sum of $40-50 billion for the U.S. operations of the hit app, in

00:59the range of the $44 billion Musk paid in 2022 for Twitter, now known as X, and well

01:06above the roughly $20 billion bid made by the U.S.-led consortium Project Liberty last

01:11week.

01:12Until any sale is confirmed, though, the fate of TikTok in the United States rests with

01:17the Supreme Court.

01:19When Congress passed the law that required TikTok's parent company, ByteDance, to sell

01:23it or see it banned in the U.S., it was partially motivated by the fear that the Chinese government

01:29might use TikTok to contort Americans' discourse, pitting people against one another and eroding

01:34their trust in the democratic systems that define American politics.

01:39Last Friday, at the Supreme Court oral argument that will determine TikTok's fate, Chief Justice

01:44John Roberts made a joke underlining this risk.

01:48He said, quote,

01:49Did I understand you to say, a few minutes ago, that one problem is that ByteDance might

01:53be, through TikTok, trying to get Americans to argue with each other?

01:58He then answered his own question, spurring laughter from the crowd, saying, quote,

02:03If they do, I'd say they're winning.

02:07Foreign governments, including China's, have long run influence operations to try to divide

02:12and propagandize American citizens, and have used social media platforms to do so.

02:17The U.S. government has run similar campaigns abroad, too.

02:21But the TikTok law is the first attempt by the U.S. Congress to directly regulate a social

02:26media platform for the purpose of limiting those influence operations.

02:31This raises a key First Amendment question.

02:34Can the U.S. government, in trying to stop other governments from manipulating speech,

02:39itself manipulate speech by forcing the shutdown of a massively popular platform?

02:45The TikTok bill is not a direct ban.

02:47It gives ByteDance the choice to sell TikTok instead of seeing it banned.

02:52But ByteDance, at least thus far and despite reports this week, has insisted that it will

02:56not sell TikTok.

02:58Instead, it will leave the U.S. market altogether.

03:02If the law does go into effect, TikTok will likely not only disappear from the app stores,

03:06but will also stop working in the United States.

03:10That's because the law would require all the U.S. companies that help keep TikTok online,

03:14from cloud companies hosting TikTok's data to content delivery networks and their providers,

03:19to stop doing so.

03:22There are three ways the justices could stop the law from going into effect on Jan. 19.

03:27They could rule for TikTok and find that the law is unconstitutional.

03:31Or they could issue one of two types of stays, temporarily stopping the law from going into

03:36effect while they deliberate on its fate.

03:39To grant the first type of stay, called a temporary restraining order, the court would

03:43need to find that ByteDance and TikTok are likely to eventually win their case.

03:48But the second type of stay, an administrative stay, would not require the court to take

03:52a position on the merits.

03:54Instead, it would just reflect the court's decision that they need more time to consider

03:59the case.

04:01For full coverage, check out Emily Baker White, Derek Saul, Antonio Pequeño IV, and Meri

04:06Whitfill-Roloff's pieces on Forbes.com.

04:11This is Kieran Meadows from Forbes.

04:14Thanks for tuning in.

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