US top court leans towards TikTok ban over security concerns

The Supreme Court appears poised to uphold a law that bans TikTok in the US over national security concerns unless its China-based parent company sells the platform ahead of a 19 January deadline.

The Court’s nine justices heard from lawyers representing TikTok, and content creators that the ban would be a violation of free speech protections for the platform’s more than 170 million users in the US.

The US government argued that without a sale, TikTok could be used by China as a tool for spying and political manipulation.