The long-running debate over TikTok’s future in the U.S. is finally coming to a head.

The Supreme Court announced Wednesday it will hear a challenge brought by the popular social media app against legislation that threatens its operation in the U.S. The bill forces TikTok to shut down its U.S. operations by Jan. 19, 2025, unless its China-based owner, ByteDance, sells the platform to another company.

The high-profile case pits national security concerns against free speech protections. It will arrive at the high court on Jan. 10, nine days before the law takes effect and 10 days before Mr. Trump takes office. That tight schedule sets the stage for an almost unprecedented legal and political drama, one that will shape the future of one of the most popular social media apps in the country.

TikTok told Threat Status that it is pleased with the Supreme Court’s move.

“We believe the court will find the TikTok ban unconstitutional so the over 170 million Americans on our platform can continue to exercise their free speech rights.,” TikTok spokesman Michael Hughes said in a statement.

Cases before the Supreme Court usually take months between being granted a review and eventually decided. But the justices moved unusually quickly to consider TikTok’s petition.

And the social media platform is facing significant scrutiny on the other side of the Atlantic as well. The European Union announced this week it will investigate whether TikTok breached the bloc’s digital rulebook by failing to deal with alleged Russian use of the platform to interfere in Romania’s presidential election earlier this month. The EU and Romanian authorities say that long-shot conservative populist candidate Calin Georgescu surged to the top of the pack in the first round of voting after an alleged “aggressive promotion campaign” on TikTok to promote his candidacy. Declassified EU and Romanian intelligence files allege that the scheme included payments worth a total of $381,000 to TikTok influencers to promote Mr. Georgescu.

TikTok has maintained it is working aggressively to counter the “covert influence networks” interfering in the Romanian election. 

Google stopped foreign influence operations from using its news aggregation service to manipulate voters ahead of last month’s U.S. election, according to a new report from the Big Tech company.

Google’s Threat Analysis Group, or TAG, said it restricted the visibility of websites linked to Iran and Russia from appearing on Google News’ platforms. The disclosures represent a new look inside Google’s efforts to block foreign influence campaigns, which rely heavily on Google News and other platforms to reach American voters.

The company said it stopped 27 web domains from appearing on its Google News and Discover search services as part of an investigation into coordinated influence campaigns from Iran.  

“The campaign was sharing content in Arabic, English, French and Spanish about the Israel-Palestine conflict, U.S. military engagement in the Middle East, social issues in the U.S., and the U.S. election, including narratives from across the political spectrum,” wrote TAG’s Billy Leonard on the company’s blog.

Mr. Leonard said the company’s investigation into Russian influence operations led it to terminate 10 YouTube channels publishing English-language content related to the U.S. election. Google also restricted seven web domains from visibility on Google News that were part of what the company said was a Russian-linked coordinated influence campaign.  

The bipartisan House Task Force on Artificial Intelligence wants Congress to take a more aggressive role in overseeing AI applications for national security, including its potential role in weapons systems.

The 273-page report published this week recommended “robust oversight” of the Pentagon’s policies on autonomous weapons. The report represents a significant push by Congress to assert its authority over AI at a time when the technology is evolving rapidly and becoming a bigger part of American military planning.

The task force specifically urged the House Armed Services Committee to take a lead role in conducting hearings with an understanding that not all lawmakers are AI experts just yet.

“Congress should exercise its oversight function through briefings, hearings, letters and other opportunities,” the report said. “Such oversight would ideally include hearing from those inside and outside the government. These interactions must recognize that members of Congress and staff have varying levels of understanding of AI.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson, Louisiana Republican, said the potential for AI to overhaul America’s economy and national security prompted him and House Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries to create the AI task force.

As the year ends and Republicans prepare to take control of the White House and Congress, questions abound over whether lawmakers will advance substantial AI legislation in a narrowly divided House and Senate in 2025. It’s also not entirely clear how the incoming Trump administration will approach the thorny issue of AI regulation.

Sen. Rand Paul helped kill legislation that would have given local authorities new power to detect and take down drones flying above their jurisdictions. The libertarian Kentucky Republican said the bill could end up trampling on Americans’ rights.

Top Democrats had pushed the bill as a snap response to the mysterious drone sightings in New Jersey and elsewhere in the eastern U.S. over the past several weeks. Those sightings have sparked fears that perhaps a foreign power is conducting a major surveillance operation in American skies, though the federal government has tried to tamp down those concerns and maintains that the objects are commercial airplanes, harmless civilian or law enforcement drones, or even stars mistaken as drones.

In blocking the bill, Mr. Paul zeroed in on what he said is an inconsistency in Democrats’ position: The Biden administration has insisted the drones pose no threat even as Democrats say local governments need more power to deal with them. In particular, Mr. Paul said he’s worried that the proposal would let authorities scoop up the phone signals of people near airports during drone incidents.

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