Supreme Court Upholds TikTok Shutdown

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By Jess Bravin and Sarah E. Needleman

(The Wall Street Journal) — The Supreme Court unanimously upheld a federal law requiring TikTok’s Chinese owners to sell or shut down the social-media app by Jan. 19, siding with Congress’s national-security concerns over the platform and its users’ claim that the ban violates the First Amendment.

The ruling on Friday means the platform could go dark — at least temporarily —on Sunday, depriving millions of teenagers and other TikTok users of their daily fix of short-form videos that keep them glued to their phones.

President-elect Donald Trump and his allies are trying to find a political path forward to assuage security concerns and rescue the app. Biden administration officials have signaled they don’t intend to enforce the ban before leaving office, but that hasn’t been enough to give TikTok comfort.