The Free Press is in D.C. for inauguration weekend, and the one thing dominating the conversation—even more than president-elect Trump—is TikTok.
On January 17, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that Congress’s law forcing a divestiture of TikTok “is necessary to address [Congress’s] well-supported national security concerns regarding TikTok’s data collection practices and relationship with a foreign adversary” and thus did not violate the First Amendment. This meant that TikTok, since it had failed to secure a sale to a buyer not controlled by a “foreign adversary,” needed to shut down by Sunday.
On Saturday, TikTok announced that the app was going dark. Soon thereafter, news broke that president-elect Trump might even be open to nationalizing half the social-media app.