Professor Barry McDonald Comments on TikTok Ban and Supreme Court Case TikTok, Inc. v. Garland

Professor Barry P. McDonald is quoted in several publications regarding the TikTok ban and the Supreme Court case TikTok, Inc. v. Garland. The legal battle between ByteDance, the Chinese company that owns the social media app, and the US government resulted in a win for the government on January 17 when the Supreme Court issued a decision that upheld the ban passed by Congress.

Excerpt from Yahoo Finance, "Pressure on TikTok Mounts after Supreme Court Skepticism of Free-Speech Argument"

Supreme Court justices sounded skeptical of some of the free-speech arguments made Friday by TikTok, heightening pressure on the popular social media app as its Chinese parent faces a Jan. 19 deadline to divest the platform or face a US ban.

Several legal experts said they now expect the court to keep the law mandating that divestment in place."It sounds to me like there is a majority of justices prepared to rule on the merits before the 19th and uphold the law," said Pepperdine University law professor Barry McDonald.

The complete article may be found at Yahoo Finance

Excerpt from Marketplace, "Could TikTok Alternatives RedNote and Lemon8 be Banned?"

Though the law doesn’t cover copycats, a TikTok alternative might still encounter problems if it infringes TikTok’s intellectual property, said Barry McDonald, a law professor at Pepperdine University, though that corporate rivalry problem would not apply to Lemon8 since it’s owned by ByteDance.

“For instance, if RedNote were to try to adopt TikTok’s look and feel, essentially attempting to make folks think it was essentially TikTok, then the latter might sue for trade dress infringement — attempting to pass off one’s service as another’s,” McDonald said.

The complete article may be found at Marketplace

Professor McDonald is also quoted in Swiss Daily NZZ article, "Tiktok windet sich vor dem Obersten Gericht der USA," which may be found at Swiss Daily NZZ (subscription required)