Thomas A. Berry
Thomas A. Berry
Today, the Supreme Court granted review of TikTok v. Garland, a case that could determine whether TikTok will continue to operate in the United States. In this post, I’ll explain how we got here and why the Supreme Court should not take the same deferential approach that the DC Circuit Court of Appeals took in this case less than two weeks ago.
In April, President Biden signed an unprecedented law that required TikTok to either divest from its parent company, ByteDance, by January 2025 or cease operations in the United States. Such divestment would likely be infeasible because ByteDance owns much of TikTok’s code and employs many of the engineers who make TikTok run. And even if it were feasible, American TikTok users would lose access to content from outside the country, fundamentally changing the platform.
The law contained an unusual provision requiring that any legal challenges be brought directly to the Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, bypassing the federal district courts. Pursuant to that requirement, three lawsuits were filed in the DC Circuit challenging the law, one by TikTok itself and two by various TikTok users. Cato filed an amicus brief supporting these challenges.
In our brief, we address two justifications for the law that lawmakers repeatedly invoked: that TikTok is a platform for propaganda and that it is a platform for misinformation and disinformation. As our brief explains, neither of these arguments can justify the law because there is no First Amendment exception for either propaganda or false speech.
Nonetheless, a three-judge panel of the DC Circuit recently held that the law does not violate the First Amendment. And the reasoning behind the panel’s conclusion likely surprised everyone involved in the case.
First Amendment cases generally proceed in two steps. First, the court must determine what level of scrutiny to apply. » Read More
https://www.cato.org/blog/tiktok-case-heads-supreme-court