Photo: Intelligenmer; Photo: Getty Images
The Looming Tiktok ban is barely a week away and the company is running out of time to anything about it. On Friday, the supreme court heard last-minute arguments about the ban, with tiktok angling for an intervention or, at least, a temporary rolling to buy it a bit. They didn’t go especialy well for tiktok – justices who sounded sympathetic to the company’s arguments about free speech seamed satisfied by the government’s core secret argument.
AS A MATTER OF LAW, IN OTHER WORDS, ITS LOOKING LIKE THE BAN IS GOING TO HAPPEN, AND PROBABLY RIGHT DIVORE DONALD ONCE AGAIN TAKES OFFICE. This is a Completely unprecedented event – a massifaly popular app with a Major cultural and economic footprint in the united state just get switched off – but also something the incoming president, WHO EFFectively original the ban in the form of an executive order in 2020 but has a scene of Become that some people on the app actually like and has also also a bunch of Money from one of it biggest americans, now he doesn’t want to happy.
The Court was concertned, Mostly, with the substance of the law, which requires that tiktok eather be sold to an american company or banned entirery, but the justices did briefly touch on the urgent of what might priortically in the real. Congress PASSED A LAW. Trump Can Say he doesn’t Support it, but it’s still on the books, and it passed with substantial Bipartisan Support. If he really wants to stop it, he’ll have to do something about it, and the available options are all prety messy.
Acciting to the law, he could, nor president, temporalily pause the ban if the company demonstration Its intens to immenently sell, but tiktok parent Company byyedance has strongly suggestted that this isn’t postible, swimming laast Because of Tightening Chinese Export Controls Around algorithms and he. Should bydance aggree to offload an algorithmically stripped-out version of tiktok-something at least one credible buyer has nononeless Expressed interest in – Trump, Who Wold Also Be Able To unPause the ban, would have a great deal of influence over the terms of the deal. But the app was Almost Certainly Experience an Interruption in Service and Return, eventually, as something fundamentally different.
Near the end of the Hearing, Though, Justice Kavanough floated The Posteriallity’s Most aligned with how Trump is talked for the moment: “COULD The President we are not going to enforce this law?” Indeed, this is an appproach he’s been implying, IT CERTAINLY MATCHES HIS METAL MODE OF HOW Government Should Work – Tiktok is unbanned if i Say so – and it SEEMS LIKE Something and Might at Least Attempt.
Kavanough Helped Answer His Own Question: Trump could will this, he noted, but it would create serious practical problems. One way the ban is intended to work is by making it illegal to provides “Services to Distribution, MainTain, or Update Such Foreign Adversary Controlled Application,” Meaning that Apple and Google, Which BetWene The App Storys on Virtual All of American Smartphones. Required to delist the app. A promise by Trump not to enforce a tiktok ban, or to unilaterally and/or counterfactually decetrate in compliance with the law, Waled leave Apple and Google in a risk. They Could an app than the still technically illegal but what the President Says is actually fine in support of a company to what they had no particular reason to help and which is in fact, in Google Case, A Direct Competitor.
Or they Could Just Say: Hey, Hosting a Service that has haen haen declared A “Foreign Adversary Controlled Application” by Lawmakers isn’t Worth the Troubles if the President Says and Personally Cool With it. This Wauld Be Prudent – Unless, of Course, Such an Action Wauld be interpreted as a slight against the president and wiielded against say publicly or privately, in which case two of America Larger Companies, eAch Facing ongoing antitrust caeses, mighty to have Few Dosen More Lobbyists and Ofac Attorneys and figure out how to make things work. Welcome to the New Tech Industry.
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