US Supreme Court upholds law banning TikTok

The justices ruled that the law, passed by an overwhelming bipartisan majority in Congress last year and signed by Democratic President Joe Biden, did not violate the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment protection against government abridgment of free speech. The justices overturned a lower court’s decision that had upheld the measure after it was challenged by TikTok, ByteDance and some of the app’s users.

The Supreme Court acted speedily in the case, having held arguments on Jan. 10, just nine days before the deadline set under the law. The case pitted free speech rights against national security concerns in the age of social media.

TikTok is one of the most prominent social media platforms in the United States, used by about 270 million Americans – roughly half the country’s population, including many young people. TikTok’s powerful algorithm, its main asset, feeds individual users short videos tailored to their liking. The platform presents a vast collection of user-submitted…