US President-elect Donald Trump urges SC to Delay TikTok ban

US President-elect Donald Trump on Dec 27 filed an application urging the Supreme Court to postpone a bill that would outlaw TikTok if its Chinese parent firm, ByteDance, does not sell it prior to his inauguration on Jan 20.

"In light of the novelty and difficulty of this case, the court should consider staying the statutory deadline to grant more breathing space to address these issues," said Trump's legal team in order to provide him "the opportunity to pursue a political resolution."

During his previous administration, the Republican was adamantly against TikTok and attempted to outlaw the app on the grounds of national security.

Trump raised concerns, which his political rivals also shared, over possible Chinese government access to the data of American TikTok users or content manipulation on the app.

American officials raised concern about the app's appeal among young people, claiming its parent company is subordinate to Beijing and uses the platform to spread propaganda. Chinese officials and TikTok, however, denied these claims.

Additionally, Trump insisted that a US company buy TikTok and that the government split the sale proceeds. But for the same reasons, Joe Biden signed laws banning the app.

Trump has since reversed his position and stated that he has "a warm spot" for TikTok. He said the application and possible ban would be reviewed by his government.

The president-elect welcomed TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew to his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida earlier this month.

"Now that I'm thinking about it, I'm for TikTok, because you need competition. If you don't have TikTok, you have Facebook and Instagram—and that's, you know, that's Zuckerberg," said Trump.

After Trump's followers stormed the US Capitol on Jan 6, 2021, numerous media platforms banned him, including Mark Zuckerberg's Meta-owned Facebook.

Later, these limitations on popular social media sites were removed.

Raising concerns about freedom of expression, a coalition of free speech advocacy organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union, filed a second brief with the Supreme Court challenging the law's implementation.

"Such a ban is unprecedented in our country and, if it goes into effect, will cause a far-reaching disruption in Americans' ability to engage with the content and audiences of their choice online," according to the submission of the rights groups.

TikTok's challenge against Biden's order for its owner to sell or face a ban was just accepted by the US Supreme Court.

TikTok claims that its First Amendment rights are violated by the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act.