The potential banning of TikTok, one of the most popular social media video platforms to exist, is still very much a possibility, even though forces on both sides of the aisle have come together to stop it.
According to Fox News, a group of state attorneys general have formally asked the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold the legislation that requires TikTok to sell to an American company or face being banned completely.
The support for upholding the law came via the Republican attorneys general of Virginia and Montana, who filed an amicus brief arguing why the law should not be reconsidered by the high court.
TikTok has waged a massive legal battle to remain alive in the United States and have successfully taken the issue to the Supreme Court for arguments to be held in the near future.
There are opposing forces within the Republican Party regarding the law, as President-elect Donald Trump, once an advocate for banning the platform, is now siding with it.
Trump filed an amicus brief with the high court recently in an attempt to convince the Supreme Court to pause the ban, at least temporarily, allowing him to ultimately make an executive decision regarding the platform once he's in office.
Other Republicans across the country seem to disagree and want the potential ban upheld.
Fox News noted:
In an announcement, Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares said he, along with Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen and other state legal officials, had recently petitioned the Supreme Court to uphold the divest-or-ban law against TikTok.
"Allowing TikTok to operate in the United States without severing its ties to the Chinese Communist Party exposes Americans to the undeniable risks of having their data accessed and exploited by the Chinese Communist Party," Virginia AG Miyares wrote in a statement.
"Virginians deserve a government that stands firm in protecting their privacy and security," he continued.
"The Supreme Court now has the chance to affirm Congress’s authority to protect Americans from foreign threats while ensuring that the First Amendment doesn’t become a tool to defend foreign adversaries’ exploitative practices."
The president-elect is attempting to remain neutral in the matter, arguing that he should be able to make the final call when he's in office.
[The brief asked] the court to extend the deadline that would cause TikTok’s imminent shutdown and allow President Trump the opportunity to resolve the issue in a way that saves TikTok and preserves American national security once he resumes office as president of the United States on Jan. 20, 2025," his spokesperson, Steven Cheung, told Fox News.
TikTok has argued that the threat of a ban in the law is a First Amendment violation.
It'll be interesting to see if the high court gives the company time to allow Trump to take office.
