A look at some of the most popular short videos on the TikTok social media platform may prompt head-scratching about what the fuss is.
There is Charli D’Amelio (nearly 156 million followers) from the state of Connecticut, dancing in an 11-second clip to a remix of a Chris Brown song.
There is a smiling baby having her cheeks squeezed (400 million views).
And a video clip has racked up 2.3 billion views of California illusionist Zach King riding a “magic broomstick.”
Any day now, the billions of comedy skits, dance challenges, life hacks, and cute pets and babies on TikTok could become invisible in the United States.
The U.S. Supreme Court has fast-tracked oral arguments on a challenge by the Chinese company ByteDance, the owner of TikTok, to a new U.S. law that would ban the social media platform on grounds of national security.
While TikTok, the most popular social media platform in the United States, has become a part of American culture, its Chinese ownership has alarmed government officials and lawmakers. Beijing’s potential access to all that personal data and the ability to shape public opinion for its American users prompted Congress to ban it, with a 352-65 bipartisan vote in the House of Representatives last March.
That happened despite TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew’s appeal to American users to fight the legislation.
“Protect your constitutional rights. Make your voices heard,” Chew, a Singaporean with a Harvard MBA, said in a TikTok video prior to the congressional action.
TikTok has repeatedly stated it has ensured the data of its American users is protected from outside influence and manipulation.
Parent company ByteDance has more than 150,000 employees globally, including U.S. offices in Austin, Los Angeles, New York and Seattle.
Barring a reprieve by the Supreme Court, ByteDance will lose access to its largest market on Jan. 19.
“Assuming the Supreme Court upholds the law — unless the Trump administration can find some workaround, which I’m doubtful they’ll be able to — the choice is either sell TikTok or face a ban in the United States,” Alan Rozenshtein, an associate professor at the University of Minnesota School of Law, told VOA.
Both President Joe Biden and President-elect Donald Trump had backed the ban. But Trump expressed a recent change of heart after his campaign videos during last year’s election performed well on the platform.
“They brought me a chart, and it was a record. It was so beautiful to see. And as I looked at it, I said, ‘Maybe we got to keep this sucker around for a little while,’” Trump said during an appearance in Phoenix in December.
The Supreme Court will listen to the social media company’s appeal on Friday.
The justices will weigh the national security argument against the constitutional guarantee of free speech for ByteDance’s American subsidiary and its estimated 170 million users in the United States.
“That’s one dimension of the conflict. But in another sense, it’s also a fight within free speech itself, because one thing the government is arguing is that one of the dangers of having Chinese ownership of TikTok is that the Chinese government would be able to manipulate the algorithm and therefore distort the speech environment itself,” explained Rozenshtein, who is also a senior editor at Lawfare, an online site that analyzes complicated legal and policy issues related to U.S. national security.
Canadian investor Kevin O’Leary said he has informed Trump that he’s nearing a deal to buy the U.S. assets of TikTok that would save it from being banned.
“I wanted to let him know, as well as others in his Cabinet, that we’re doing this, and we’re going to need their help,” O’Leary, best known as one of the hosts of the reality TV program Shark Tank, told Fox News.
Trump has asked the Supreme Court to put the case on hold so he can negotiate a sale of the platform following his second inauguration on Jan. 20 —- the day after the ban is set to go into effect.
In the meantime, another sharing app owned by ByteDance — Lemon8 — is sponsoring posts on TikTok encouraging users to migrate there.