After a federal court last week rejected TikTok’s request to overturn a law that would have banned the app in the United States, the company is now turning to the Supreme Court in an attempt to buy time. The social media company asked the court to temporarily block the law, which will take effect on January 19, 2025, it said in a brief statement.
“The Supreme Court has a proven record of upholding Americans’ right to free speech,” TikTok wrote in the post. in X. “Today, we ask the Court to do what it has traditionally done in free speech cases: apply strict scrutiny to the suppression of speech and conclude that it violates the First Amendment.”
The company, which has argued that the law is unconstitutional, lost its first challenge to the law earlier this month. The company then asked for a delay in the implementation of the law, saying that President-elect Donald Trump had said he would “save” TikTok. That request was denied on Friday.
In its filing with the Supreme Court, TikTok also referred to Trump’s comments. “It will not be in the interest of anyone – not the parties, the public, or the courts – that the ban of the Act on TikTok is effective only for the new Administration to stop it hours, days, or weeks later,” it wrote. Trump’s inauguration is one day after the ban on the app went into effect.
TikTok is now hoping that the Supreme Court will intervene to halt the law to give the company time to file a final legal appeal. Otherwise, app stores and internet service providers will be forced to begin blocking TikTok next month, making the app inaccessible to its 170 million American users.
Update December 16, 2024, 1:30 PM PT: Updated with information from the TikTok court.
