”TikTok should remain available to Americans, but simply under American ownership or other ownership that addresses the national security concerns identified by Congress in developing this law,” the White House said in a statement.
”Given the sheer fact of timing, this Administration recognises that actions to implement the law simply must fall to the next Administration, which takes office on Monday.”
The US Supreme Court refused to rescue TikTok on Friday from a law that required the popular short-video app to be sold by its Chinese parent company ByteDance or banned on Sunday in the United States on national security grounds — a major blow to a platform used by nearly half of all Americans.
The justices unanimously ruled that the law, passed by an overwhelming bipartisan majority in Congress last year and signed by Democratic President Joe Biden, did not violate the US Constitution’s First Amendment protection against government abridgement of free speech. The justices affirmed a lower court’s decision that had upheld the measure after it was challenged by TikTok, ByteDance and some of the app’s users.
Meanwhile, US President-elect Donald Trump said on Friday the decision on the future of the TikTok app will be up to him, but he did not provide any detail about what steps he would take.
“It ultimately goes up to me, so you’re going to see what I’m going to do,” Trump said in an interview with CNN. “Congress has given me the decision, so I’ll be making the decision.”
Also read: TikTok CEO plans to attend Donald Trump’s inauguration: Report
