Posted on 01/10/2025 6:57:08 AM PST by RandFan
There is a line of at least a hundred people braving the DC cold this morning, waiting to get into the Supreme Court for today's oral arguments in the TikTok hearing.
Some are avid users, and say they have been hearing about this hearing on the platform.
Student Danielle Ballesteros has been waiting here since 6:30am.
"I feel like TikTok doesn't deserve to be banned." She admits she uses it "probably too much" but thinks it's an important news source for people from her generation.
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.co.uk ...
TikTok is a social media platform on which people can make and share short videos – and watch those made by others.
That’s hardly revolutionary, as there many other apps that allow users to do something similar.
The “secret sauce” of TikTok’s success though lies in its For You page, and the algorithm that powers it.
It has proven itself far better at scouring the endless content being created around the world and serving up the videos that really capture people’s attention, regardless of who made it.
The ability of the platform to recommend content highly tailored to users’ interests has helped it to stand out in the social media landscape.
Donald Trump filed a brief to the Supreme Court in late December asking the justices to pause a ban on TikTok set to take effect on 19 January, the day before his inauguration.
The president-elect called TikTok - an app he had previously sought to ban - a “unique medium for freedom of expression”.
“President Trump alone possesses the consummate dealmaking expertise, the electoral mandate, and the political will to negotiate a resolution to save the platform,” the brief said, “while addressing the national security concerns expressed by the government”.
What is happening TODAY?
This last ditch legal bid by TikTok and Chinese owners ByteDance is scheduled to begin shortly.
Two hours have been allotted for oral arguments from representatives for TikTok and ByteDance, and content creators who are also fighting the ban, as well the US government, who will argue it should be upheld.
Noel J Francisco – a former US solicitor general during President-elect Donald Trump’s first term – will have 30 minutes to make the case for TikTok and ByteDance when the hearing starts.
He will be followed by Stanford Law professor Jeffrey L Fisher, representing TikTok creators who joined the company in suing the US over its law.
Prof Fisher will have 30 minutes to articulate creators’ concerns over the impact of the app’s US ban on their livelihoods and free expression.
Would you let Hitler run a web site in the US? Putin?
Or Saddam Hussein, Idi Amin or Josef Stalin, for that matter?
Justice Neil Gorsuch has been pressing TikTok to clarify the facts in the case, noting that for there to be disagreement at this late stage in a legal battle is “unusual”.
In particular, he pushes TikTok to clarify the company’s relationship with the Chinese government, which the US maintains has “control” over the app.
Noel Francisco, the attorney for the company, ducks the question a bit, noting that he could only speak to the record that has been presented in court and that much of the evidence the US has presented has been shielded from public view.
Kagan is testing Fisher about whether the First Amendment rights of Americans can reasonably be extended to TikTok, given that it is owned by a foreign corporation.
“it doesn’t matter that Americans want to work with ByteDance because ByteDance is a foreign corporation which doesn’t have First Amendment rights,” she says.
But Fisher says he thinks that’s not quite right, comparing creators who want to use TikTok’s algorithm to a bookstore that wants to sell a book.
“The Communist manifesto written by Karl Marx has no first amendment standing on its own in America but if a bookstore wants to sell that publication, I don’t think Congress can prevent it from doing so,” he says.
The issue is not Tik Tok, the issue is the Red Chinese government using it’s defacto control of Tik Tok to gain the personal information of millions of Americans.
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