TikTok ban likely as Supreme Court nears ruling

The fate of TikTok in the U.S. is still uncertain as Congress calls for Chinese-owned ByteDance to divest.

Transcript

00:00It looks like the Supreme Court is going to vote to upheld the law that bans TikTok in the U.S.

00:06So what's the likelihood of TikTok surviving this legal battle?

00:11It's not looking great for TikTok right now. The Supreme Court sounded skeptical in those

00:16oral arguments on Friday, and we also know that the decision is very, very near. It's next week,

00:23so there's really not a lot of wiggle room in all of this. The Supreme Court,

00:29it looks like that they're going to just go ahead and uphold that law that was implemented

00:33late last year, and President Trump, incoming President Trump, won't be able to do a whole

00:38lot about it because the ban takes effect on the 19th, and he doesn't actually get inaugurated

00:44until the 20th. So there will be at least an interim blackout period, and it doesn't look

00:50like TikTok's going to be coming back up for air, so it will be banned in the United States starting

00:55on that day. So much focus right now seems to be on the ByteDance part of the equation.

01:01Is separating TikTok and its parent company really, is it really that simple? I don't think

01:07it's that simple. Personally, it would be kind of like asking your grandma to give up her beloved

01:12chocolate chip cookie recipe. The idea of a divestiture of this app seems really unlikely.

01:18That is an option for ByteDance, which is the parent company of TikTok, to sell off the U.S.

01:23arm of its business. That was a conversation that was also happening several years ago when

01:28Trump was pushing for a ban. There was a conversation between Microsoft or Oracle

01:32potentially buying TikTok, and that ended up not going through. It would be just buying that U.S.

01:38arm of TikTok. But it seems unlikely that TikTok is going to reveal that secret sauce,

01:44that algorithm. It's what makes people love the app so much, is that the algorithm is really

01:50sticky. It's very sensitive. If you want to watch a dog video, you're going to get 10 more dog

01:56videos in just a few minutes. It's a very sensitive algorithm. It's very much TikTok's

02:00secret sauce. And so it doesn't seem likely or smart that this company, this global company,

02:07would give away its recipe to a U.S.-based company, particularly given that the United States has

02:14historically produced a lot of the most successful and most compelling social media apps over the

02:18last couple decades, just seems like giving your playbook to the competition, to be totally honest.

02:24Now, what about one of the solutions we heard suggested by one or two of the justices in their

02:30questioning? Something like a warning label that clearly identifies, quote, the risk, although,

02:37you know, we can debate. I mean, there's some debate about what the risk is, right?

02:41What could that look like and how would it work?

02:45It doesn't really get to the root of what the issue at hand really is, which is the sharing of

02:51data. Most users are probably going to ignore that disclaimer. And the concern is about U.S.

02:57users' data being shared with ByteDance. When the People's Republic of China has said in the past

03:05that they have a right to potentially access that data, there's also been several breaches of

03:11security that have been traced back to China. And so in terms of the entire reason the ban is

03:17going into effect, adding a warning label is very much a band-aid. It doesn't really solve the

03:23problem in any way. I think it's unlikely to influence many users to stop using the app.

03:29Most users are not very concerned about their data being shared. They just want to see that

03:34next piece of content in their feed. So when it comes down to the actual debate, I don't think

03:40we'll actually see that be the reason or the solution because it's not really solving anything.