The president-elect of the United States of America, Donald Trump, has asked the Supreme Court to postpone the decision to ban the social network TikTok while saying that he is working on “political solutions”, writes the BBC.
The Republican’s lawyer on Friday filed legal briefs with the court saying Trump opposes the TikTok ban and will resolve the issue through political means once he takes office. On January 10, the Supreme Court will hear arguments on a US law that requires TikTok’s Chinese owner, ByteDance, to sell the social network to a US company or face a ban from January 19 – the day before Trump takes office .
US officials and lawmakers have accused ByteDance of ties to the Chinese government – which the company denies.
Those claims about the app, which has 170 million users in the US, led Congress to pass a bill in April, which President Joe Biden signed into law, that would have required TikTok to be sold or banned. TikTok and ByteDance have filed multiple arguments against the law, saying it threatens American free speech protections, but have had little success. The company’s only hope is the Supreme Court.
The US Supreme Court agreed to allow TikTok, ByteDance and the US government to present their cases on January 10 – just days before the ban takes effect. Trump had met with TikTok chief Shou Zi Chew at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida last week.
The president-elect had previously spoken openly about banning TikTok in the US. But he said that this social network helped him a lot to win the November 5 elections. According to him, Republicans have never received more youth votes and this is attributed to TikTok. Therefore, Trump’s position has changed.
