In TikTok Inc. et al v. Merrick Garland, Nos. 24-656, 24-657 (January 17, 2025), the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act against a First Amendment challenge.
From the per curiam opinion:
As applied to petitioners, the Act is sufficiently tailored to address the Government’s interest in preventing a foreign adversary from collecting vast swaths of sensitive data about the 170 million U. S. persons who use TikTok. To survive intermediate scrutiny, “a regulation need not be the least speech-restrictive means of advancing the Government’s interests.” Turner I, 512 U. S., at 662. Rather, the standard “is satisfied ‘so long as the regulation promotes a substantial government interest that would be achieved less effectively absent the regulation’” and does not “burden
substantially more speech than is necessary” to further that interest. Ward, 491 U. S., at 799 (quoting United States v. Albertini, 472 U. S. 675, 689 (1985); alteration omitted).The challenged provisions meet this standard. The provisions clearly serve the Government’s data collection interest “in a direct and effective way.” Ward, 491 U. S., at 800. The prohibitions account for the fact that, absent a qualified divestiture, TikTok’s very operation in the United States implicates the Government’s data collection concerns, while the requirements that make a divestiture “qualified” ensure that those concerns are addressed before TikTok resumes U. S. operations. Neither the prohibitions nor the divestiture requirement, moreover, is “substantially broader than necessary to achieve” this national security objective. Ibid. Rather than ban TikTok outright, the Act imposes a conditional ban. The prohibitions prevent China from gathering data from U. S. TikTok users unless and until a qualified divestiture severs China’s control.
This decision illustrates that restrictions that pertain, in some way, to content do not necessarily violate the First Amendment.