Could The SCOTUS TikTok Ban Decision Affect Future Free Speech Claims?

This article was originally published in expanded form by the American Bar Association's Forum on Communications Law in the Spring 2025 issue of Communications Lawyer.

The U.S. Supreme Court upheld Congress' law banning TikTok in the United States unless its Chinese parent company, ByteDance Ltd., divests ownership. The January decision sparked significant public debate, but little focused on how this case could affect First Amendment claims moving forward.

ByteDance, TikTok, and a group of U.S. TikTok users and content creators argued that the ban violated their First Amendment rights. The Supreme Court disagreed, but it left a fundamental question in First Amendment litigation unaddressed. It did not provide an in-depth discussion on who the relevant "speakers" were in the case and whether there was a "right to receive" the information in the social media context.