Supreme Court may announce opinions Friday as decision on TikTok ban looms

Source: CBS News

Updated on: January 16, 2025 / 6:06 PM EST


Washington — The Supreme Court said Thursday that it may announce opinions on Friday morning, a last-minute addition to the schedule that comes just two days before a law that would ban TikTok is set to go into effect. "The Court may announce opinions on the homepage beginning at 10 a.m.," a notice on the court's website said, without specifying what case or cases might be decided. "The Court will not take the Bench."

The law would cut TikTok off from U.S. app stores and hosting services if it does not cut ties with its China-based parent company, ByteDance, before the Jan. 19 deadline.

The Supreme Court seemed likely to upload the law when it heard arguments over TikTok's legal challenge last week, with the justices seeming sympathetic to the government's claims that China could use TikTok to collect a vast amount of data on its American users and spy on them.

Noel Francisco, who argued on behalf of TikTok and ByteDance, said the potential Supreme Court decision is "enormously consequential" for the platform's 170 million users in the U.S. and their free speech rights. If the law is not paused or overturned by Sunday, "we go dark," Francisco said last week. "The platform shuts down," he said, later clarifying that TikTok would no longer be available in U.S. app stores.

Read more: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/supreme-court-friday-opinions-tiktok-ban/