A new law gives TikTok a January 19 deadline to sell to a non-Chinese company or face a nationwide ban. Law professor Alan Rozenshtein delves into what this means and whether President-Elect Trump could intervene.David Bianculli reflects on the year in TV.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
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This is Fresh Air. I'm Tanya Mosley. TikTok is in a race against time, a last-ditch effort to save itself from being banned in the U.S. on January 19th. The CEO of ByteDance, the company that owns the popular social platform, met with President-elect Donald Trump on Monday, just hours after asking the Supreme Court to take up the case and block the ban temporarily.
This morning, the court agreed to take up the appeal and hear oral arguments on January 10th before deciding whether to put the ban on hold. Now at issue is who owns TikTok. Lawmakers say the platform is a national security risk because it gives China unfettered access to our data and our attention.
Last April, Congress passed a law that mandates TikTok either be sold to a non-Chinese company or be banned. TikTok challenged that law, arguing that a ban infringes on America's First Amendment rights to free speech. Now, each month, about 170 million of us spend time on TikTok. And for those who aren't on it, yes, it's a place to watch silly pranks and dance challenges.
but it's also a cultural phenomenon. According to Pew Research, 60% of adults under 30 get their news from TikTok, and millions also use it to generate income by creating content and selling products. Our guest today, Associate Professor Alan Rosenstein, has closely tracked TikTok's legal battles.
He's been thinking about the ramifications of a ban and recently penned an article for The Atlantic asking... What if free speech actually means banning TikTok? Our interview was recorded yesterday. Rosenstein is a law professor at the University of Minnesota Law School and a senior editor and research director at Lawfare. Alan Rosenstein, welcome to Fresh Air.
Thanks for having me.
So there are so many legal moving parts to this case. Let's start with the Supreme Court. What happens now that TikTok has asked the court to intervene?
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