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The judges temporarily reign in the case, which presents national security disorders with respect to China opposed to the coverage of freedom of expression through the first amendment.
By Adam Liptak
Washington reports
The Supreme Court seemed inclined on Friday to uphold a law that could effectively ban TikTok, the wildly popular app used by half of the country.
Even as several justices expressed concerns that the law was in tension with the First Amendment, a majority appeared satisfied that it was aimed not at TikTok’s speech rights but rather at its ownership, which the government says is controlled by China. The law requires the app’s parent company, ByteDance, to sell TikTok by Jan. 19. If it does not, the law requires the app to be shut down.
The Government has presented two justifications for the law: to combat opposite to the secret disdates of China and prohibit them from collecting personal data on Americans. The court was divided into the first justification. But several judges seemed worried about the option that China can use knowledge extracted from the application of espionage or blackmail.
“Congress and the president were concerned,” Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh said, “that China was accessing information about millions of Americans, tens of millions of Americans, including teenagers, people in their 20s.”
These data, he added, can be used “over time to expand to spies, other people, blackmail blackmail, other people who, from now on, will be painted in the F. B. I. or the C. I. A. or the State Department.
Noel J. Francisco, Tiktok’s lawyer, said he did not play the risks. But he said that the government can attend to them through good by not ordering the application, as he said, “do it dark. “
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