Trump urges SCOTUS to delay TikTok ruling
Silicon Valley technology pioneer Allison Huynh joins ‘Fox & Friends Weekend’ to address President-elect Donald Trump’s decision to ask the Supreme Court to wait to decide the future of social media platform TikTok.
MAGA Republicans offer an outpouring of support for TikTok, ahead of a looming ban on the social media platform that will come into effect later this month.
“Trump won the election because he listened to new voters like me and joined TikTok to deliver his message directly to us,” Brilyn Hollyhand, chair of the RNC Youth Advisory Council, told Fox News Digital about the upcoming ban. “He didn’t need paid influencers or dirty trends like his failed opponent. All he had to do was go where Gen Z was, TikTok, and work out his plan.”
Representatives of TikTok, owned by Chinese technology company ByteDance, will make arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday asking the country’s highest court to delay a ban on the app that will take effect a day before the inauguration. . President Biden signed legislation In April, it became law that gave TikTok’s parent company until January 19 to sell it or face a U.S. ban.
If the Supreme Court does not lift the ban, American TikTok users will no longer be able to download the app and internet providers will no longer be allowed to grant access to the site.
WILL THE WHITE HOUSE SAVE TIKTOK FROM A SERVANT BAN? THE PRESIDENT-ELECT HAS DONE A 180 ON THE APP
In this photo illustration, the download page for the TikTok app is shown on an Apple iPhone on August 7, 2020 in Washington, D.C. President-elect Donald Trump used TikTok during his 2024 presidential campaign. (Photo illustration by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
The threatened ban came amid concerns that U.S. users’ data is being collected by the Chinese government, but MAGA Republicans and content creators who spoke to Fox Digital found the reasoning disingenuous.
RNC Youth Advisory Council Chair Brilyn Hollyhand credits TikTok for motivating youth to vote for now President-elect Donald Trump. (John Lamparski/Getty Image)
“I have, if not, taken the deepest dive possible into all concerns related to the platform, especially for my daily show where I share my opinions and commentary on what is going on in culture and politics,” TikTok creator and TPUSA -commentator Isabel Brown, who has more than 500,000 followers on TikToktold Fox Digital in a telephone interview. “And we’ve been facing this potential ban on the platform for at least nine months to a year now. The complaints I hear, especially from politicians, largely revolve around national security.”
TRUMP SAYS TIKTOK’S FATE MUST BE IN HIS HANDS WHEN HE RETURNS TO THE WHITE HOUSE
‘But I find it very difficult to believe this is true argument to censor TikTok is based into a national security problem, while we still have documented evidence from virtually every American social media company. Meta, Twitter, YouTube, etc., selling your data under the table to your own government and/or the Chinese Communist Party and even to the Russian government as well.
TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew testifies before the House Energy and Commerce Committee at the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill on March 23, 2023 in Washington, D.C. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
“Heck, we even have data on Airbnb selling US data to the Chinese Communist Party. So there doesn’t seem to be much willingness to actually protect the cyber and personal information security of American citizens from the government, it seems. just be focused on TikTok as a platform itself,Brown continued.
TIKTOK DISINVESTMENT COULD BE ‘DEAL OF THE CENTURY’ FOR TRUMP, SAYS HOUSE CHINA COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN
Newly elected President Donald Trump’s supporters praising TikTok comes after the former and incoming president made big strides with Generation Z, especially young male voters, in the last cycle. A Fox News Voter Survey released after the election found that men between the ages of 18 and 44 supported Trump at 53%, compared to Vice President Kamala Harris at 45%.
TikTok influencer Isabel Brown says she doesn’t buy the national security argument for banning TikTok, given the way several U.S. social apps handle data. (Fox News)
“We’re talking about an app that nearly 200 million Americans, 75% of whom are Gen Z, use every day as our top news source, and according to some studies, even as our top web browser search tool. so more than Google…and I’ve found that the opportunity for virality – to have a conversation with as many people as possible – on Tiktok is unparalleled on any other social media platform,” Brown said.
A Republican strategist told Fox News Digital that TikTok is, for all intents and purposes, a “conservative platform.”
“If anything, TikTok is now a conservative platform – if you look at how Trump dominated his competition, there is no argument against the value of this platform, and I don’t think there is a world in which Trump doesn’t deliver on his promises. promise to make it,” the strategist said.
The GOP insider added that “the fact that (Senator Mitch) McConnell and (former Vice President Mike) Pence want to ban this thing means it needs to be saved.”
Participants hold signs in support of TikTok outside the U.S. Capitol on March 13, 2024 in Washington, DC (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Ahead of the new year, Senator Mitch McConnell filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court, urging the justices to deny ByteDance’s request to delay the ban.
“The controversial idea that TikTok has the expressive right to facilitate the CCP’s censorship regime is absurd,” McConnell’s counsel Michael A. Fragoso wrote in the friend of the court brief. “Should Congress have allowed Nikita Khrushchev to buy CBS and replace The Bing Crosby Show with Alexander Nevsky?”
While former Vice President Mike Pence’s nonprofit, Advancing American Freedom, filed a similar amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court last month.
“The CCP does not respect freedom of expression, neither in China nor in America. The First Amendment is not, and should not be read as, a means to give the Chinese government the power to do what the American government could not: manipulate what the Americans could not.” can say and hear,” the group wrote.
Advancing US President Tim Chapman told Fox News Digital that Trump’s first administration “got it right the first time” when Trump initially tried to ban TikTok before the former and incoming president recanted his views on the app.
“The Trump administration got this right the first time when it planned to ban TikTok via executive order over the same concerns that exist today. Political strategists drooling over clicks and followers doesn’t mean the national security implications have changed,” Chapman said.
TRUMP JOINS TIKTOK, THE APP HE ONCE TRIED TO BAN AS PRESIDENT
Emily Wilson, political commentator and host of the podcast “Emily Saves America,” told Fox News Digital that she can see both sides of the argument surrounding the looming TikTok ban, but that instituting a ban would be “hypocritical to freedom of expression.”
“The TikTok ban is controversial, I see both sides to it. I see it as a very left-leaning app that takes up way too much of people’s time, but it’s sometimes the only place I get information about stories that should be known worldwide At the same time, it can be dangerous. It can radicalize young people. One day you wake up on TikTok and young Americans say they support Osama bin Laden,” Wilson told Fox Digital.
Political commentator Emily Wilson opposes a TikTok ban over concerns about free speech.
“It seems like it’s an app that is anti-American and wants to brainwash young children. Ultimately, it’s hypocritical for me to say that I should ban the app, against freedom of expression. I just don’t want young people to be affected by it.” be harmed,” she says. added.
TIKTOK DISINVESTMENT COULD BE ‘DEAL OF THE CENTURY’ FOR TRUMP, SAYS HOUSE CHINA COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN
Trump himself has made a 180-degree turn on TikTok. Under his first administration, in 2020, Trump tried to ban the app from the US market over national security concerns. However, his executive order was ultimately blocked by federal court.
Fast forward to 2024, in the middle of the campaign cycle, and Trump joined the app in June during the campaign cycle and has since amassed nearly 15 million followers and 107 million likes as supporters flocked to his content on the platform. Trump also filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court last month, which did not support either side in the case, arguing that the platform’s fate should be left to his administration.
Then-former President Donald Trump dances as he leaves the stage after speaking alongside former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard during a town hall meeting in La Crosse, Wisconsin, on August 29, 2024. (KAMIL KRZACZYNSKI/AFP via Getty Images)
“Today, President Donald J. Trump filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court, asking the Court to extend the deadline that would trigger the impending shutdown of TikTok, and to give President Trump the opportunity to resolve the issue at a way that will save TikTok and US national security once he resumes his office as President of the United States on January 20, 2025,” said Trump spokesperson and incoming White House communications director Steven Cheung told Fox News Digital last month.
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“President Donald J. Trump (‘President Trump’) is the 45th and soon to be 47th President of the United States of America,” the letter said. “On January 20, 2025, President Trump will assume responsibility for the national security, foreign policy, and other vital executive functions of the United States.”
Brooke Singman, Paul Steinhauser and Morgan Phillips of Fox News Digital contributed to this report.
