The weird tick-tock on TikTok in the US

On the 10th of the month, the US Supreme Court heard arguments on "whether the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act" violates the First Amendment.

One week later, the Supreme Court issued per curiam opinion with no dissents upholding the law. Sotomayor and Gorsuch each filed a concurrence.

By way of reminder: this case arose because President Trump, in his first administration, sought to make it impossible for TikTok to continue in the US. He purported to ban it by executive order. https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-addressing-threat-posed-tiktok/

But a district court judge struck down the ban on the ground that there would have to be a statutory mandate.

Under the Biden administration, Congress passed a statutory mandate, and that is the law that (oddly, with Trump's blessing) the PRC backed management of TikTok was seeking to have declared unconstitutional on first amendment grounds.

Okay, it is not so odd. What has happened in the meantime to make Trump oppose the ban he initiated? Trump has become buddies with a billionaire and campaign donor, Jeff Yass, who owns a significant share of the parent company, ByteDance. We may as well thank the outgoing President for calling this by an apt name: oligarchy.

Now the new president is determined the save TikTok in America, from the danger he created, and just incidentally to save ByteDance a lot of money. Because of his deep commitment to freedom of speech. Riiiiiight.

Anyway, before the midnight that brought in January 19, judging my own testing on the point, an American typing the URL www.tiktok.com would get a brief explanation about why the service is not "available right now" in the US, and a word of comfort about how the incoming President "will work with us on a solution." TikTok also disappeared from the app stores of Apple and Google.

A few hours later, service re-appeared on the website, although this hasn't helped it with Apple or Google.

Trump could arrange a sale of US Tiktok at a firesale price if ByteDance is willing to take such a price. But if it were willing to do so, why would he be necessary? The bosses of ByteDance have been aware of the approaching deadline for a long time now, they could have closed on a deal by now except that they wanted to play a game of chicken.

At any rate, one of Trump's first actions as POTUS to sign an executive order delaying the ratification of the law by 75 days, presumably to allow further time for a sale to a company not under the thumb of the Peoples' Republic of China. This 75 day order Is rather like one of those "I'm about to get married" green cards. But it is not clear what the end game is there.

What the parent company seems to want is a change in the law. That would be a considerable legislative accomplishment should this administration even put its shoulder to that wheel. At any rate, every day that goes by with uncertainty and with the app stores closed to TokTok, there is a melting of the ice cube of its value as a going concern. People are even now changing their habits and their business relationships in ways they won't simply erase should such a return eventually come about.

I hope next week some time to say something more about the above mentioned Supreme Court decision.

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