- Supreme Court upheld the TikTok ban in a unanimous decision.
- The decision was very narrow and would likely differ if TikTok were a U.S.-owned company.
- Creighton Law Professor Paul McGeal suggests this is part of a larger concern regarding social media regulation.
- The ruling impacts both users and small business owners who rely on the platform.
- The government’s regulation of social media platforms is under scrutiny.
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
Friday the Supreme Court upheld the TikTok ban with unanimous decision, the ruling raised questions for an Omaha marketing company about social media regulation and its impact on small businesses.
SCOTUS's unsigned opinion, said it was a very narrow case. Had this been a U.S. owned company, the outcome likely would have been different.
Creighton Law professor Paul McGreal says this is one piece of a larger concern.
"It signals that the Supreme Court is just beginning to address these issues of social media and is going to do do it small pieces at a time because it's struggling to figure out how best to adapt free speech. To social media just like all the rest of us are," said McGreal.
How the ban is enforced will be up to the Trump administration, who steps back into power Monday. But even if the new Trump administration decides not to enforce the ban, it doesn't protect users or app stores from being penalized down the road.
"If you're a company like Apple or Google, the reality is that even if you're told by the president, I don't intend to enforce this law, you would be breaking federal law. And that has to be some discussion internally at Apple, Google, and other companies about how comfortable we feel that this will not come back to bite us again," said McGreal.
A court filing from December said small businesses and creators would lose out on $1.3 billion in just one month if the app shut down on the January 19th.
Because there are so many what ifs, creators, small businesses, and marketing agencies say they're looking for an alternative including Omaha Places founder Cahner Olson.
"Our plan right now is to keep posting that same content on other platforms you know there's a lot of talk recently. Are people gonna go to Lemon8? Are they gonna go to YouTube?" asked Olson. "Are they gonna go to, you know, some other one that, you know, we've never even heard of yet and so being the first on those new platforms I think is gonna be key," said Olson.
SCOTUS's decision to uphold the statute was heavily centered around privacy concerns and data. An example provided my McGreal is, one user may consent to an app accessing their contact list, but not every person saved as a contact in their phone can. Meaning other people's cell phone numbers, facial scans, and more could be in the hands of foreign government officials.
McGreal says the fear is that the data extracted from TikTok could be linked to government officials or persons of interest to the Chinese government, and thus could lead to a national security threat.
