TikTok’s presence in America may be reaching the end of the line.
The popular video app, which is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, is currently scheduled to be banned nationwide on January 19th, 2025, just one day before Donald Trump takes office.
However, it has now filed a petition to the Supreme Court in a last ditch attempt to try and save its place in the valuable American media market after all its other legal attempts fell on deaf ears.
“The Act will shutter one of America’s most popular speech platforms the day before a presidential inauguration,” TikTok wrote in its petition.
“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.”
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The ban comes after years of wrangling among national security experts about the safety of the app, which many believe is used by the Chinese Communist Party to spy, harvest data and manipulate the minds of American citizens.
However, the app also has hundreds of millions of users, a considerable number of whom earn a living from creating content for their audiences.
The petition added that a pause on the ban would “create breathing room for this Court to conduct an orderly review … before this vital channel for Americans to communicate with their fellow citizens and the world is closed.”
In a statement posted on its X social media account, TikTok Policy said that 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,” the statement read.
Statement on Filing Application for Emergency Injunction Pending Appeal with the Supreme Court:
“”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:…
— TikTok Policy (@TikTokPolicy) December 16, 2024
Despite claiming they are in favor of freedom of speech, TikTok are actually as bad as the rest of the social media companies.
The company has repeatedly censored The Gateway Pundit and other conservative voices on the basis of promoting “disinformation.”
Donald Trump, meanwhile, has so far refused to support the ban, arguing that it would empower the likes of Mark Zuckerberg and Meta and allow them to capture the American market.
“If you get rid of TikTok, Facebook and Zuckerschmuck will double their business,” Trump wrote on Truth Social back in May.
“I don’t want Facebook, who cheated in the last Election, doing better. They are a true Enemy of the People!”
Trump is also active on the platform with nearly 15 million followers, although he has not posted since election day.
