Supreme Court upholds TikTok ban, Biden stays execution — but broad power now lies with Trump

The product of anti-China hysteria, the law empowers the president to choose which foreign-owned platforms live or die in the U.S.

The Supreme Court has upheld a law requiring Tik Tok to be sold or banned unless its China-based parent company sells it.

Yet the wildly popular social media app’s future remains unclear. The Biden administration won’t force Tik Tok to go offline before the Sunday deadline, leaving its fate in the hands of Donald Trump, who will have unilateral power to take down social media sites thanks to the law. On Friday, Trump said via Truth Social that he had spoken to Xi Jinping, the leader of China, about a range of issues, including Tik Tok. Shou Chew, the platform’s CEO, also reportedly plans to attend Trump’s inauguration.

Since Tik Tok’s not getting nuked yet, follow Jessica Burbank and Ryan Grim for more news. And be sure to follow Drop Site on Twitter for the fast-moving developments on the Gaza-ceasefire negotiations

A RedNote and Tik Tok logo are displayed on a smartphone in Chongqing, China, January 4, 2025 / CFOTO/Future Publishing via Getty Images

Protecting youths from having their precious data harvested by China and being manipulated by CCP operatives, Congress moved to prohibit Americans from visiting the number one site in the world, Tik Tok. But the “Tik Tok ban” bill goes much further than prohibiting Bytedance, Tik Tok’s parent company, from controlling the app in the United States. The measure gives new power to the president to determine which social media platforms from around the world are permitted in the United States.

Signed into law in April of last year and upheld by the Supreme Court on January 17, H.R.7521, not only prohibits Tik Tok starting January 19, 2025—it gives the president authority to prohibit any foreign-owned social networking app through a simple two-step process.

First, the president must submit a public report to Congress “describing the specific national security concern involved,” along with a classified annex of “what assets would need to be divested to execute a qualified divestiture.” Then, at least 30 days later, the president will issue “a public notice” declaring the application is owned by a foreign adversary, and that it presents “a significant threat to the national security of the United States.”

Ahead of the ban, Tik Tok’s U.S. based competitors actively lobbied for the bill. The strategy for large tech firms and social media companies has been to rid the market of competition, known as “catch and kill.” Facebook’s parent company, Meta, paid a consulting firm, Targeted Victory, to run a nationwide media campaign bashing Tik Tok. According to internal emails, leaked to the Washington Post in March of 2022, the firm was hired to “get the message out that while Meta is the current punching bag, TikTok is the real threat especially as a foreign owned app that is #1 in sharing data that young teens are using.”

Tik Tok was only the bill’s first target. H.R.7521, the “Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act,” specifically determines “ByteDance, Ltd.; TikTok” is a “foreign adversary controlled application.” In accordance with the bill, it will be unlawful to “distribute, maintain, or update” Tik Tok in the United States 180 days after the bill’s enactment. Unless, of course, Tik Tok is under new ownership and determined by “the President… through an interagency process” to no longer be controlled by a foreign adversary.

The bill goes on to describe what other “foreign adversary controlled applications” will be prohibited in the United States. The bill is sweeping, prohibiting any “covered company" that is “controlled by a foreign adversary” and is “determined by the President to present a significant threat to the national security of the United States.”

As for what constitutes a “covered company,” H.R.7521’s language makes clear that the intention is to allow the government to target social media platforms. Under H.R.7521, a covered company is “an entity that operates”—even through a parent company—“a website, desktop application, mobile application, or augmented or immersive technology application,” with the following criteria:

1. In which users can “create an account or profile to generate, share, and view text, images, videos, real-time communications, or similar content”;

2. Has over “1,000,000 monthly active users”;

3. It “enables 1 or more users to generate or distribute content” and;

4. The application or website “enables 1 or more users to view content generated by other users…”

Essentially, the bill describes a social media platform. The criteria is easily met by any platform where users can interact: live video gaming, a single-video stream with a comment section, or applications for group messaging.

Days away from the Tik Tok ban, users are desperate for a new platform to replace it. The massive influx of new users on the Chinese social media app Xiaohongshu, commonly called “Red Note,” has vaulted it to the number one spot among trending social media platforms in the App store. Ironically, Red Note may be bringing to the U.S. the exact kind of Chinese foreign influence legislators feared Tik Tok would.

The cultural exchange on Red Note between users in China and the U.S. has been lively. Much of the conversation has revolved around debunking propaganda from both sides. One user, Tiakatriina, posted: “Chinese people, can you tell me what’s something western media tell us about China, what’s totally incorrect in reality?”

A conversation about the validity of reports in the U.S. on the social credit system in China went viral. One user based in China, 天天想提前退休, posted “Who spread the rumor of social credit thing in China?” Another user commented: “3 letter agencies.”

An exchange over ambulance costs also went viral. One user in Shanghai posted a video breaking down the cost of an ambulance ride in the city: about $50. An American user commented that her ambulance ride in the U.S. cost her roughly $9,000.

The conversation carried over to Tik Tok, where one post garnered over 1.5 million views and over 400,000 likes, saying: “Someone in the comments of Red Note asked me if we really had to pay for an ambulance in America, or if that was just their government’s propaganda.”

Unlike Tik Tok US, which is headquartered in Los Angeles, California, Red Note is headquartered in Shanghai, China, and owned by Xingyin Information Technology. Given Red Note’s location and ownership, it is possible an incoming president determines Red Note to be a threat to national security, subjecting the platform to the same fate as Tik Tok.

Donald Trump, who supported the ban as president, reversed that stance and campaigned on saving Tik Tok. Trump’s pick for national security advisor, Mike Waltz, told Fox News: “We will put measures in place to keep TikTok from going dark,” with the goal of buying Trump “time to keep Tik Tok going.”

There is a process to challenge “any action, finding, or determination under this act,” within 165 days of presidential determination. A petition can be filed exclusively with the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. This is the main appellate court at the federal level, and is regarded as the second highest court in the land, directly below the U.S. Supreme Court.

H.R.7521 places a shocking amount of power in the hands of the President, allowing them full power to determine which foreign-owned social media platforms live or die in the United States. The hyperfocus on Tik Tok may be a red herring, distracting from the sweeping impact of the measure: Ushering in a new era where the commander-in-chief decides who Americans are able to connect with around the world—potentially sowing deeper divisions among the U.S. and its foreign adversaries.