Time could be running out for TikTok

THE MEMBERS of America’s Supreme Court, as Justice Elena Kagan acknowledged in an oral argument two years ago, “are not, like, the nine greatest experts on the internet”. The justices’ lack of digital savvy was apparent when, on January 10th, they weighed the fate of TikTok, the video app scrolled by nearly half of Americans. The hearing evinced little concern for how the demise of TikTok (which two justices called a “website”) would affect its 170m regular users. By the end of the nearly two-and-a-half hour oral argument, a majority seemed reluctant to interfere with a law that will ban TikTok in America on January 19th unless ByteDance, its parent company, divests itself of the platform’s American operations.