Tech Desk 
Jan 12, 2025
An undated image of TikTok logo. — Unsplash
In a dramatic turn of events following the US Supreme Court's take on the law imposing a ban on TikTok or forcing its divestiture, the legal representative of the short-video platform and its China-based parent ByteDance warned of grave repercussions if TikTok gets banned in the country.
Noel Francisco, the lawyer advocating for Tiktok and ByteDance in the apex court, said if Congress would ban TikTok, it might as well come after other social media platforms, as reported by Reuters.
"AMC movie theatres used to be owned by a Chinese company. Under this theory, Congress could order AMC movie theatres to censor any movies that Congress doesn't like or promote any movies that Congress wanted," Francisco told the justices.
Being the primary subject of arguments before the nine justices, the law imposes a ban, or its selloff to a US-based entity, on TikTok by January 19, 2025, for posing a threat to the national security of the US.
Both the platform and its parent reportedly requested the apex court, at least, to defer the implementation of the law, which, according to them, contravenes the US Constitution's First Amendment protection of free speech against government curtailment.
In the view of counter questions from the justices during the court session, they seemed to be in favour of the law. However, some of the justices hearing the plea expressed concerns regarding the law's impact on the US Constitution's First Amendment.
In line with remarks made by Jeffrey Fisher, the legal representative of TikTok content creators who also have filed petitions against the law, was of the view that Congress, with the law, was only targetting TikTok, leaving major Chinese online retailers including Temu.
