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The Supreme Court on Friday heard oral arguments on the future of TikTok—whether to let the platform go dark on January 19 according to a bipartisan law passed by Congress, or to intervene and spare the platform.
The case pits the First Amendment free speech rights of TikTok and its users against the government’s assertions that the platform poses a national security risk. With bipartisan support, Congress passed a law that will essentially ban TikTok in the United States on January 19 unless ByteDance, the Chinese-based company that owns TikTok, divests the platform.
Genuflecting to national security over fundamental rights has led to some of the court’s most regrettable decisions.
The Supreme Court does not generally like to second-guess the federal government when it comes to national security concerns, and is therefore likely to ultimately uphold the law. While the …