ByteDance, TikTok’s guardian firm, has acknowledged it has no plans to promote TikTok, leaving the app’s authorized enchantment – focused on US guarantees for free speech – as its solely possibility for survival.
“The legislation earlier than this court docket is unprecedented. Its impact could be staggering,” mentioned Andrew Pincus, the lawyer arguing on behalf of the wildly in style video-sharing app.
“For the primary time in historical past, Congress has expressly focused a selected US speaker (ie, TikTok USA),” he added.
Of their questions, the judges challenged this argument, evaluating it to earlier instances in US jurisprudence.
This included a case from the Nineteen Eighties the place closing the Palestine Data Workplace in Washington DC was deemed authorized as a result of it was backed by the PLO, a company formally designated as a terrorist group.