The Supreme Court is poised to decide a landmark case on Friday that could reshape social media in America. At stake: TikTok must either break from its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, or cease U.S. operations entirely.
While the government frames this as a critical national security measure, the short-form video app and its creators and users see a direct challenge to First Amendment freedoms. This tension sits at the heart of a broader debate about digital communication and national interests.
“Everything that they’ve accused TikTok of, Facebook has done.”
On this week’s Intercept Briefing, Alex Pearlman, aka Pearlmania500, whose videos reach nearly 3 million followers, says the issue is not the app but the way tech platforms operate. He says, “We want regulations of algorithms. We at least need to know what the rules are.” And when it comes to the government’s crackdown on TikTok, he says, “Everything that they’ve accused TikTok of, Facebook has done, either domestically or internationally. Everything that they have screamed could happen with TikTok, when it came to the elections, Elon Musk did openly. And most people know that. Most people see that. And I think it’s going to lend to further cynicism when it comes to our institutions and when it comes to how government can actually operate.”
Intercept senior counsel and correspondent Shawn Musgrave adds, “Tech competitors to TikTok have generally avoided saying very much about the ban. … But these companies obviously stand to benefit incredibly from knocking out their top competitor in the short-video space. It is not really a consideration before the court in the case itself, but I do think it’s important to look at some of the background issues. That it’s not just about national security and First Amendment. There are also really considerable economic interests here too.”
“These companies obviously stand to benefit incredibly from knocking out their top competitor in the short-video space.”
Intercept politics reporter Jessica Washington says TikTok isn’t just another social network — it’s fostering political conversations that wouldn’t exist anywhere else. “We’ve seen Twitter, which is now X, move really far to the right. I think anyone who’s been on there in recent times can attest to that. We know YouTube also has a pretty right-leaning audience as well and an algorithm. And Facebook and Instagram are very different platforms than TikTok. So I think we lose a lot of those conversations that are happening, important political conversations in different regions, different areas of the world. Important conversations that young people are having with each other.”
To hear more of this conversation and understand what’s at stake, check out this week’s episode of The Intercept Briefing.
IT’S EVEN WORSE THAN WE THOUGHT.
What we’re seeing right now from Donald Trump is a full-on authoritarian takeover of the U.S. government.
This is not hyperbole.
Court orders are being ignored. MAGA loyalists have been put in charge of the military and federal law enforcement agencies. The Department of Government Efficiency has stripped Congress of its power of the purse. News outlets that challenge Trump have been banished or put under investigation.
Yet far too many are still covering Trump’s assault on democracy like politics as usual, with flattering headlines describing Trump as “unconventional,” “testing the boundaries,” and “aggressively flexing power.”
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IT’S BEEN A DEVASTATING year for journalism — the worst in modern U.S. history.
We have a president with utter contempt for truth aggressively using the government’s full powers to dismantle the free press. Corporate news outlets have cowered, becoming accessories in Trump’s project to create a post-truth America. Right-wing billionaires have pounced, buying up media organizations and rebuilding the information environment to their liking.
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I’M BEN MUESSIG, The Intercept’s editor-in-chief. It’s been a devastating year for journalism — the worst in modern U.S. history.
We have a president with utter contempt for truth aggressively using the government’s full powers to dismantle the free press. Corporate news outlets have cowered, becoming accessories in Trump’s project to create a post-truth America. Right-wing billionaires have pounced, buying up media organizations and rebuilding the information environment to their liking.
In this most perilous moment for democracy, The Intercept is fighting back. But to do so effectively, we need to grow.
That’s where you come in. Will you help us expand our reporting capacity in time to hit the ground running in 2026?
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