最高法院似乎准备支持可能在美国禁止 TikTok 的法律

【中美创新时报2025年1月10日编译讯】（记者温友平编译）周五，最高法院就一项可能决定 TikTok 命运的法律展开了辩论。法官们的问题似乎表明，法院将支持禁止 TikTok 的法律。国会将该应用程序的中国所有权列为国家安全风险，并通过了一项法律，除非出售，否则将禁止该社交媒体平台。TikTok 和创作者表示，这侵犯了他们的言论自由权。《纽约时报》记者查理·萨维奇查理·萨维奇撰写有关法律政策的文章。

周五，最高法院就一项可能决定 TikTok 命运的法律展开了辩论。TikTok 是一个广受欢迎的社交媒体平台，拥有约 1.7 亿用户。

国会颁布这项法律是出于担心，该应用程序的所有者位于中国，容易受到中国政府的影响，并对国家构成风险。除非 TikTok 的所有者字节跳动在 1 月 19 日之前将其出售，否则该措施将有效禁止 TikTok 在美国运营。

以下是一些关键要点：

法院似乎很可能会支持这项法律

尽管不同意识形态的法官都对双方提出了尖锐的问题，但整体语气和主旨似乎表明，他们对 TikTok 及其用户的律师提出的论点持更大的怀疑态度，即第一修正案禁止国会颁布该法律。

质询由两位保守派法官克拉伦斯·托马斯 (Clarence Thomas) 和首席大法官约翰·罗伯茨 (John G. Roberts Jr.) 开始，他们表示，直接受到该法律影响的不是 TikTok 这家美国公司，而是其中国母公司字节跳动。

另一位保守派法官布雷特·卡瓦诺 (Brett M. Kavanaugh) 关注的风险是，中国政府可能会利用 TikTok 收集的数千万美国青少年和二十几岁年轻人的信息，最终在他们长大后为国家安全机构或军队工作时“培养间谍、欺骗他人、勒索他人”。

自由派法官埃琳娜·卡根 (Elena Kagan) 质问，为什么 TikTok 不能直接创建或购买另一种算法，而要使用字节跳动的算法。

另一位自由派法官凯坦吉·布朗·杰克逊 (Ketanji Brown Jackson) 表示，她认为该法律与其说是关于言论，不如说是关于结社。她表示，禁止 TikTok 与中国公司结社，就好比出于国家安全原因禁止美国人与外国恐怖组织结社。 （最高法院已裁定该法案符合宪法。）

不过，几位法官对政府为该法案辩护的主要部分持怀疑态度：中国可能会“暗中”让 TikTok 操纵向美国人展示的内容或收集用户数据以实现其地缘政治目标。

卡根大法官和保守派大法官尼尔·戈萨奇都强调，现在每个人都知道 TikTok 背后是中国。他们似乎感兴趣的是，政府能否以不那么严厉的方式实现防止外国对手“暗中”利用该平台的利益，比如在标签上警告用户这种风险。

TikTok 及其用户的律师认为该法案违宪

两名律师认为该法案违反了《第一修正案》：代表 TikTok 和字节跳动的诺埃尔·弗朗西斯科和代表 TikTok 用户的杰弗里·费舍尔。两人都表示，对中国政府可能操纵美国用户在该平台上看到的信息的担忧不足以证明该法案的合理性。

弗朗西斯科辩称，自由国家的政府“没有阻止外国宣传的正当理由”，从宪法上讲，政府不能试图阻止美国人“被中国的错误信息所说服”。他说，这是针对言论内容，而第一修正案不允许这样做。

费舍尔断言，担心中国可能会利用其对平台的控制来宣传对民主产生怀疑或推动亲华和反美观点的帖子，这种干涉言论自由的理由比对外国恐怖主义的担忧更弱。

“政府不能说‘国家安全’，案件就结束了，”费舍尔说，并补充道，“光说‘国家安全’是不够的——你必须说‘真正的危害是什么？’”

拜登政府捍卫了国会颁布法律的权利

司法部长伊丽莎白·普雷洛加 (Elizabeth B. Prelogar) 辩称，国会有合法权力颁布该法规，它没有违反第一修正案。她表示，重要的是要认识到，一旦 TikTok 平台摆脱外国控制，法律将使该平台的言论不受限制。

“TikTok 上发生的所有言论在剥离后都可能发生，”她说。“该法案根本没有对此进行监管。所以它不是说你不能发表亲华言论，你不能发表反美言论。它没有监管算法。”

她补充道：“如果 TikTok 能够做到这一点，它可以使用完全相同的算法来显示相同​​用户的相同内容。该法案所做的只是试图精准地消除外国对手国家获取我们数据和控制该平台的能力。”

法院似乎不太可能等待特朗普

当选总统唐纳德·J·特朗普已要求最高法院发布禁令，将该法律的生效推迟到他 1 月 20 日就职之后。

特朗普曾认为中国对 TikTok 的控制是一种无法容忍的国家安全风险，但在会见一位持有其母公司股份的亿万富翁共和党捐助者时改变了立场。

弗朗西斯科表示，如果法院确实支持该法律，TikTok 将于 1 月 19 日在美国被禁止。他重申了一项请求，即法院暂时中止该法律的生效，以推迟该期限，并表示这“只会为每个人争取一点喘息空间”。他补充说，1 月 20 日之后，TikTok 可能会“变成另一个世界”。

但法官们对这个想法关注甚少，这表明他们并没有认真对待。特朗普的简报要求法院将这个问题推迟到拜登总统任期结束后，以便他能够处理它——由他挑选的下一任司法部长 D. 约翰·索尔 (D. John Sauer) 签署——长篇大论地赞美特朗普，但缺乏实质内容。

题图：最高法院前的一群人。最高法院周五听取了有关 TikTok 的辩论。图片来源：Caroline Gutman 为《纽约时报》提供

附原英文报道：

Live Updates: Supreme Court Seems Poised to Uphold Law That Could Ban TikTok in the U.S.

Congress labeled the app’s Chinese ownership a national security risk and passed a law that would ban the social media platform unless it was sold. TikTok and creators say that violates their free speech rights.

ImageA group in front of the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court heard arguments over TikTok on Friday.Credit…Caroline Gutman for The New York Times

Charlie Savage

Charlie SavageCharlie Savage writes about legal policy.

Here are four takeaways from the arguments.

A group of people standing in front of the Supreme Court. Snow covers the lawn.

Attendees waiting in line outside the Supreme Court in Washington on Friday. The justices’ questions appeared to suggest the court would uphold the law banning TikTok.Credit…Caroline Gutman for The New York Times

The Supreme Court on Friday grappled over a law that could determine the fate of TikTok, a wildly popular social media platform that has about 170 million users.

Congress enacted the law out of concern that the app, whose owner is based in China, is susceptible to the influence of the Chinese government and posed a national risk. The measure would effectively ban TikTok from operating in the United States unless its owner, ByteDance, sells it by Jan. 19.

Here are some key takeaways:

The court appeared likely to uphold the law.

While the justices across the ideological spectrum asked tough questions of both sides, the overall tone and thrust appeared to suggest greater skepticism toward the arguments by lawyers for TikTok and its users that the First Amendment barred Congress from enacting the law.

The questioning opened with two conservative members of the court, Justice Clarence Thomas and Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., suggesting that it was not TikTok, an American company, but its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, that was directly affected by the law.

Another conservative, Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, focused on the risk that the Chinese government could use information TikTok is gathering on tens of millions of American teenagers and twentysomethings to eventually “develop spies, turn people, blackmail people” when they grow older and go to work for national security agencies or the military.

Justice Elena Kagan, a liberal, asked why TikTok could not just create or buy another algorithm rather than using ByteDance’s.

And another liberal, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, said she believed the law was less about speech than about association. She suggested that barring TikTok from associating with a Chinese company was akin to barring Americans from associating with foreign terrorist groups for national security reasons. (The Supreme Court has upheld that as constitutional.)

Still, several justices were skeptical about a major part of the government’s justification for the law: the risk that China might “covertly” make TikTok manipulate the content shown to Americans or collect user data to achieve its geopolitical aims.

Both Justice Kagan and Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, a conservative, stressed that everybody now knows that China is behind TikTok. They appeared interested in whether the government’s interest in preventing “covert” leveraging of the platform by a foreign adversary could be achieved in a less heavy-handed manner, like appending a label warning users of that risk.

Lawyers for TikTok and for its users argued that the law is unconstitutional.

Two lawyers argued that the law violates the First Amendment: Noel Francisco, representing both TikTok and ByteDance, and Jeffrey Fisher, representing TikTok users. Both suggested that concerns about potential manipulation by the Chinese government of the information American users see on the platform were insufficient to justify the law.

Mr. Francisco contended that the government in a free country “has no valid interest in preventing foreign propaganda” and cannot constitutionally try to keep Americans from being “persuaded by Chinese misinformation.” That is targeting the content of speech, which the First Amendment does not permit, he said.

Mr. Fisher asserted that fears that China might use its control over the platform to promote posts sowing doubts about democracy or pushing pro-China and anti-American views were a weaker justification for interfering in free speech than concerns about foreign terrorism.

“The government just doesn’t get to say ‘national security’ and the case is over,” Mr. Fisher said, adding, “It’s not enough to say ‘national security’ — you have to say ‘what is the real harm?’”

The Biden administration defended Congress’s right to enact the law.

The solicitor general, Elizabeth B. Prelogar, argued that Congress had lawful authority to enact the statute and that it did not violate the First Amendment. She said it was important to recognize that the law leaves speech on TikTok unrestricted once the platform is freed from foreign control.

“All of the same speech that’s happening on TikTok could happen post-divestiture,” she said. “The act doesn’t regulate that at all. So it’s not saying you can’t have pro-China speech, you can’t have anti-American speech. It’s not regulating the algorithm.”

She added: “TikTok, if it were able to do so, could use precisely the same algorithm to display the same content by the same users. All the act is doing is trying to surgically remove the ability of a foreign adversary nation to get our data and to be able to exercise control over the platform.”

The court appears unlikely to wait for Trump.

President-elect Donald J. Trump has asked the Supreme Court to issue an injunction delaying the law from taking effect until after he assumes office on Jan. 20.

Mr. Trump once shared the view that Chinese control of TikTok was an intolerable national security risk, but reversed course around the time he met with a billionaire Republican donor with a stake in its parent company.

If the court does uphold the law, TikTok would effectively be banned in the United States on Jan. 19, Mr. Francisco said. He reiterated a request that the court temporarily pause the law from taking effect to push back that deadline, saying it would “simply buy everybody a little breathing space.” It might be a “different world” for TikTok after Jan. 20, he added.

But there was scant focus by the justices on that idea, suggesting that they did not take it seriously. Mr. Trump’s brief requesting that the court punt the issue past the end of President Biden’s term so he could handle it — signed by his pick to be the next solicitor general, D. John Sauer — was long on rhetoric extolling Mr. Trump, but short on substance.