Prof. Alan Rozenshtein Reviews TikTok Oral Arguments

Professor Alan Rozenshtein was quoted in the New York Times about oral arguments from today’s TikTok hearing. TikTok is pushing back against a law that would force the popular video app to sell to a non-Chinese owner or be banned. Three judges asked probing questions of TikTok and the government about an April law that forces ByteDance, the app’s owner, to sell TikTok to a non-Chinese company before Jan. 19 or face a ban in the United States. Two of the judges expressed some skepticism around TikTok’s arguments that Congress lacks the authority to pass such a law, and its defense that it was being unfairly singled out. Prof. Rozenshtein said, “It was pretty brutal for TikTok — very little went TikTok’s way.” He said the court sounded “frankly skeptical of TikTok’s request for it to really second-guess the government.”