The U.S. is not the same as the UK: The case for TikTok, PAFACA and the other social media apps
TikTok says that its data collection practices are not different from those of social media apps in the US. TikTok’s legal team argues that forcing the company to close up shop in the U.S. represents an unprecedented government suppression of free speech.
If the ban is allowed to go forward, it will be an unprecedented technological curb in the country and no one can stop it.
PAFACA doesn’t require anyone to uninstall TikTok from their phones. It also doesn’t say TikTok should directly stop its services from working in the US. Instead, it effectively tries to throttle TikTok by making it harder to use over time and by stopping companies from providing services that help it to keep working and quickly loading videos.
At stake are the app’s estimated 170 million users in the U.S., the future of a multibillion-dollar social media wunderkind, and the clash of free expression in the digital age with the threat China poses to the nation’s security.
Other middle-ground rulings are also possible. For instance, the Supreme Court could quibble with how the lower court reached its decision upholding the law and order the court to revise its opinion.
Now, if the court overturns the law, there is not much left for Trump to do. On the other hand, if the high court upholds the law, Trump has a number of options, including instructing his administration to not enforce it while he works on a deal.
While he is the incoming president, Trump wrote his December brief as a private citizen. At the time, he did not hold any executive powers and he cited no legal authority in making his request.
The law does not reflect the Congress seeking to set out in advance what type of speech we should have, said Prelogar. “Instead, it’s about trying to close off the vulnerability that our foreign adversary nation could exploit.”
How Does Jeff Yass’ New Closeness to Donald Trump Play a Role in Hiding TikTok on Competing Video Services?
But other TikTok watchers have wondered whether billionaire Jeff Yass’ newfound closeness to Trump is perhaps playing a role. Yass’ company, Susquehanna International Group, owns a sizable stake of TikTok’s owner, ByteDance.
Other creators on the app are urging TikTokers to double down on competing video services, like YouTube’s Shorts and Instagram’s Reels, as a hedge against TikTok cratering in the United States.
While such horse-trading remains speculative, national security experts in touch with Chinese regulators have told NPR that Chinese officials appear to be warming up to this possibility.
China requires its government to bless the export of technology like TikTok’s algorithm, meaning that any sale would need Beijing’s approval.
The risk of not complying with the law is enormous, because of the hope that President Trump doesn’t enforce it. “You get into the hundreds of billions of dollars of potential liability. And even if President Trump is saying, ‘don’t worry about it, I’m not going to enforce it against you,’ do you really want to take the chance that he’s not going to change his mind on that? Do you really want to give him that level of leverage over your company? I doubt it.”
Living with the Devil: Lavelle Dunn’s #TikTok #myth #Dunn_Lambda@TheLavelleShow
A short order on the case could come as soon as Friday afternoon, after the justices are scheduled to meet. The court is set to give orders on Monday, though it is a good idea to stay away from it if nothing happens by then.
As @TheLavelleShow, Dunn specializes in lifestyle content—“tips and tricks that ultimately center around my life”—that now reaches some 730,000 people. In the last year he’s cashed in on brand partnerships with Whole Foods, Marriott, Taco Bell, and The Cheesecake Factory. He made “well over six figures” in 2024, he says—Dunn declined to share the exact amount—and was able to quit his full-time job as a hotel concierge. It took him a long time to accept that he is an influencer, he tells me when we talk. I never thought my career would take me there.
Lavelle Dunn never dreamed of being on screen. In 2019, he moved from Chicago to Los Angeles with plans of working behind the scenes in Hollywood. He made connections at networking events. He tried his hand at screenwriting. “I never accepted that I could be successful in front of the camera, and vulnerably so,” he says. Many people in need of an outlet during the first two years of the epidemic joined TikTok after success. In a post from that May, he reviewed watermelon jerky from Trader Joe’s. “I’m gonna give it a gah boom bam,” he says enthusiastically in the video, which netted 1 million views overnight (it was a hot-button snack, as it turns out). That is the moment when Dunn knew that TikTok was the key.
The case is all about speech. What we’re talking about is ideas,” Francisco said in his rebuttal, dismissing national security concerns that the TikTok algorithm could be used to manipulate Americans. “That whole notion is at war with the First Amendment. If the First Amendment means anything, it means that the government cannot restrict speech, in order to protect us from the speech. That’s what this law does from beginning to end.
For more than five years, US officials have warned that TikTok has the potential to influence American perception of the Chinese government. In public interviews and congressional hearings, officials like FBI director Christopher Wray have also suggested that TikTok gathers US user data that the Chinese government could weaponize to surveil Americans online. TikTok did not share US data with ByteDance or the Chinese government.