TikTok v. Garland was a landmark case, involving the Chinese company Byte dance, and its global media platform, TikTok. The Chinese ownership of TikTok led to many concerns, primarily about the online safety of its users' data. The United States government argued that TikTok posed a national security threat due to the fact that Chinese intelligence laws could lead to the use of TikTok as a means to collect information/data on United States citizens. TikTok could access the sensitive data of its 170 million users, and Byte dance has close ties with the Chinese Communist Party, a direct threat to the U.S Government. The United States government demanded that Byte Dance either sell TikTok or shut down TikTok in the U.S.

This is a first of its kind case, as the Supreme Court never had to answer a question related to online security, regarding social media from foreign adversaries. This case involved the Foreign Adversary Control Act, and led to the question of if this act violated the first amendment rights of TikTok. Each of the Supreme Court Justices in this case made very in-depth and thoughtful remarks regarding foreign countries’ influence on national security as well as whether or not foreign countries reap the benefits of United States Constitutional protections and rights such as freedom of speech. We analyzed these justice’s decisions through the legal philosophy of Martha Minnow, Elizabeth Spellman, and Jerome Frank and their own interpretation of adjudication through the lens of neutrality, context, and mechanical adjudication.