Newly elected US President Donald Trump requested the Supreme Court to suspend the law related to the banning of the popular social media platform TikTok. He wants to find a political solution to this issue after assuming power. Trump wants enough time for this.
According to this law, TikTok, owned by Chinese company ByteDance, must be sold to an American company in the United States by January 19, otherwise the app will be completely banned in the country. A hearing on this matter is going to be held in the Supreme Court on January 10. The court will decide on the validity of this law in this hearing.
TikTok and its parent company ByteDance are trying to challenge the law in the Supreme Court. Unless the court rules in their favor at this hearing and TikTok is not sold in the meantime, the app will be banned in the US after January 19. And one day after that (January 20), Trump will take office as president.
Earlier in 2020, Trump took the initiative to ban TikTok and WeChat, another Chinese-owned social media. However, he was not successful due to the obstruction of the court. Trump's current position on TikTok is the exact opposite of his position. This time he is favoring TikTok, which became an important medium in his election campaign.
Trump's lawyer d. John Sawyer said, 'President Trump has not taken a position on the core of this debate. However, he asked to suspend the implementation of this law until January 19.
Trump met with TikTok CEO Shao Ji Chiu this month. In this meeting, he expressed his support for the continuation of TikTok in the United States for some time.
TikTok claims that they store user data through US cloud servers Oracle Corporation and content moderation in the US. However, the US government has claimed that because TikTok is owned by China, it poses a serious threat to national security.
Meanwhile, a group of 22 attorneys general filed a supporting document in the Supreme Court, urging the court to uphold the validity of the law to ban or sell TikTok.
TikTok has more than 170 million users in the United States. As a result, it has become an important digital medium in that country.
Last April, the U.S. Congress voted in favor of a bill that required TikTok to be sold or shut down within a certain period of time. Later an appellate court of the country gave the same order.
References: Reuters
