Good evening. I'm Ali Rogan. John Yang is away. President-elect Donald Trump has urged the Supreme Court to block a law that would force the popular social media app TikTok to be sold or shut down.

It's set to take effect the day before his inauguration. The app has over a billion monthly active users. TikTok has said more than 150 million are in the U.S.

But the Biden administration says TikTok poses grave national security threats because its

China-based parent company Bite Dance is subject to the will of the Chinese Communist Party.

In illegal filing last night, Trump told the justices that a delay would allow his administration to negotiate

a resolution to save the platform while addressing national security concerns. Bobby Allen is a

technology correspondent for NPR. Bobby, thank you so much for being here. Let's remind folks,

this law, this TikTok law just passed earlier this year. why did proponents of the law want to see it

passed? And how did TikTok respond? So TikTok's problem has always been China. Since the app

surged in popularity in the pandemic, lawmakers in Washington have been really concerned because

TikTok has ties to Beijing. Its parent company is based

in bite dance. And the fear has always been that the Chinese Communist Party can try to influence

the app, right, by using the app to collect Americans' data or to try to shape Americans' views

about the world.

So this law was passed that is forcing TikTok to shed its Beijing parent company or be banned

nationwide.

By-Dance says TikTok isn't for sale, so the law is set to take effect January 19th.

And of course, we are now in this protracted legal battle.

Um, to walk, get us up to speed on how that has been playing out and, and how this got

to the Supreme Court so relatively quickly.

So soon after the law was signed by President Biden in April, TikTok appealed.

And they made a First Amendment case saying the Americans who use the app will have their

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