The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected a last-minute bid to save TikTok in the United States.
Justices unanimously upheld a law banning the app unless TikTok divests itself from its Chinese-parent company, ByteDance. TikTok is scheduled to disappear on Sunday.
TikTok and a group of users argued that the ban violated the First Amendment. The justices, however, wrote that the app’s “scale and susceptibility to foreign adversary control, together with the vast swaths of sensitive data the platform collects, justify differential treatment,” according to The Washington Post.
“There is no doubt that, for more than 170 million Americans, TikTok offers a distinctive and expansive outlet for expression, means of engagement, and source of community,” the opinion states. “But Congress has determined that divestiture is necessary to address its well-supported national security concerns regarding TikTok’s data collection practices and relationship with a foreign adversary.”
Mortgage influencers that use the app to build large followings told Scotsman Guide this week that TikTok has been especially helpful in generating leads during tough times for the mortgage industry.
President-elect Donald Trump has indicated that he would like to save the app, but his plans remain unclear, according to the Post.
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Victor Whitman is a contributing writer for Scotsman Guide and a former editor of the publication’s commercial magazine.