Quotes
Congress has enacted a massive and unprecedented speech restriction,
TikTok, which claims to have more than 170 million monthly US users, said in its filing with the Supreme Court
This, in turn, will silence the speech of Applicants and the many Americans who use the platform to communicate about politics, commerce, arts, and other matters of public concern,
it addedWe 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.”
TikTok spokesperson Michael Hughes said after the filing
If Americans, duly informed of the alleged risks of ‘covert’ content manipulation, choose to continue viewing content on TikTok with their eyes wide open, the first amendment entrusts them with making that choice, free from the government’s censorship.”
In their filing to the supreme court, TikTok and ByteDance saidAnd if the DC circuit’s contrary holding stands, then Congress will have free rein to ban any American from speaking simply by identifying some risk that the speech is influenced by a foreign entity,
they addedThere is no good reason for this meeting with TikTok's CEO. The data points that Trump 2.0 might favor deals with China over strengthening the American competitive position are getting harder to dismiss."
Rush Doshi, Georgetown University political science professor, on X, formerly Twitter
I won youth by 34 points. And there are those that say that TikTok has something to do with that,
he said
Congress’s unprecedented attempt to single out applicants and bar them from operating one of the most significant speech platforms in this nation presents grave constitutional problems that this court likely will not allow to stand,
the social media platform wrote in its emergency application on Monday
We’ll take a look at TikTok,
Trump said
The First Amendment exists to protect free speech in the United States,
Judge Douglas Ginsburg wrote for the panel
There is a reasonable possibility that the new administration will pause enforcement of the act or otherwise seek to mitigate its most severe potential consequences,
TikTok arguedIt would not be in the interest of anyone — not the parties, the public, or the courts — for the act’s ban on TikTok to take effect only for the new administration to halt its enforcement hours, days, or even weeks later,
the company saidThe Supreme Court has an established record of upholding Americans' right to free speech."
In a statement posted on its X social media account, TikTok Policy said
As you know, I have a warm spot in my heart for TikTok,
Trump said during a news conference at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida
A modest delay in enforcing the Act will create breathing room for this Court to conduct an orderly review and the new Administration to evaluate this matter — before this vital channel for Americans to communicate with their fellow citizens and the world is closed,
lawyers for the companies told the Supreme CourtThe Act will shutter one of America’s most popular speech platforms the day before a presidential inauguration,
TikTok's lawyers wrote in the court filingThe petitioners have not identified any case in which a court, after rejecting a constitutional challenge to an Act of Congress, has enjoined the Act from going into effect while review is sought in the Supreme Court,
the order stated