TikTok is once again on the rocks in the US. In April, President Biden signed a foreign aid bill that will ban the popular social media app on Jan. 19, 2025, unless it divests from its Chinese owners. This week, the Supreme Court declined to come to its rescue, and it’s unclear what Donald Trump will do once he takes office on Monday. Here’s what you need to know.
Is TikTok getting banned in the US?
Maybe. When Biden signed the bill, it started a countdown that gave TikTok owner ByteDance several months to sell the app to a company not controlled by a “foreign adversary.” TikTok sued, and the case made its way to the US Supreme Court, which limited the scope of the arguments to one main question: Does the law violate the First Amendment? On Friday, it ruled that it does not, and upheld the lower court rulings.
Is banning TikTok unconstitutional?
TikTok says yes. A ban “results in a massive and unprecedented censorship of over 170 million Americans,” it argues. “Estimates show that small businesses on TikTok would lose more than $1 billion in revenue and creators would suffer almost $300 million in lost earnings in just one month unless the ban is halted.” So far, US courts have disagreed, despite Donald Trump urging the Supreme Court to pause the TikTok ban so he could “resolve the issues at hand through political means once he takes office.”
How else can TikTok avoid a ban?
If a deal is imminent before Jan. 19, the president can grant a 90-day extension. In a Saturday interview with NBC News, Trump suggested that’s on the table, though he was non-committal and didn’t mention any specific deals. “If I decide to do that, I’ll probably announce it on Monday,” Trump said. (TikTok has also said it’s not interested in selling.)
Several US senators also asked Biden for a 90-day delay, but the White House has punted the issue to the incoming Trump administration: “Given the sheer fact of timing, this administration recognizes that actions to implement the law simply must fall to the next administration, which takes office on Monday,” it says.
Who might buy TikTok?
A few possible buyers have emerged, from former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to former Activision CEO Bobby Kotick. However, neither can afford to purchase TikTok outright and would need a coalition of backers.
Former Los Angeles Dodgers owner Frank McCourt has also pitched rebuilding TikTok as a decentralized platform built on a blockchain. Earlier this month, he joined forces with entrepreneur Kevin O’Leary (of Shark Tank fame) in a bid “to purchase TikTok’s US assets and rebuild the platform in a way that prioritizes the privacy of its 170 million American users.” This week, McCourt told Reuters that his group made a formal offer to buy TikTok for around $20 billion.
Why does the US care that a video app is owned by China?
Foreign governments (and non-government persons) can land themselves on the US list of foreign adversaries if they “have engaged in a long-term pattern or serious instances of conduct significantly adverse to the national security of the United States or security and safety of United States persons.” Right now, that list includes China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia, and the Maduro regime in Venezuela. ByteDance is based in Beijing, China.
In an April interview with NBC’s Lester Holt, FBI Director Christopher Wray said TikTok is a “national security concern” because ByteDance is “beholden to the Chinese government,” and could compel TikTok to turn over data on Americans to Beijing.
TikTok users may not care that China knows what videos they watched or liked, but Wray argued that ByteDance could use the data it collects and its recommendation algorithm “for all sorts of influence operations.” That was a top concern ahead of the 2024 US election, especially since 20% of Americans now get their news from influencers, though it’s also a problem on US-owned services, as we saw in 2016.
The US made a similar argument when banning equipment from China-based Huawei and limiting exports of AI chips to China.
TikTok has long denied that it takes orders from Beijing. “We have built safeguards that no other peer company has made. We have invested billions of dollars to secure your data and keep our platform free from outside manipulation,” TikTok CEO Shou Chew said in April.
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How would a ban work?
The bill targets services that distribute, maintain, and update any apps deemed to be controlled by a foreign adversary. In this case, that would be app stores like Google Play and Apple’s App Store and web-hosting services that keep these apps online (including their websites). Last month, House lawmakers urged Apple and Google to prepare to remove TikTok from their app stores in the coming weeks if ByteDance fails to divest. Violations could result in fines of up to $5,000 per user for companies that keep TikTok online.
If TikTok is on my phone after Jan. 19, could I get in trouble?
No, the bill does not authorize the US Attorney General to “pursue enforcement…against an individual” using a foreign adversary-controlled app. More than likely, TikTok would just become inoperable on your phone; TikTok has said it will “go dark” on Jan. 19 if the Biden administration doesn’t step in with an 11th-hour move.
How do I save all my videos?
Have a huge library of videos on TikTok? We have a guide on how to download them (with and without the watermark).
What happens to my personal data if TikTok is sold?
Potential buyers are likely going to be most interested in TikTok’s underlying technology and the wealth of data the app has collected from its users. As the saying goes, if the product is free, you’re the product. Concerned about where that info will wind up? Here’s how to delete TikTok.
Didn’t we try this in 2020?
Yes, in 2020, then-President Trump signed an executive order that made similar demands. Microsoft emerged as a potential buyer for TikTok in the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Those plans ultimately fizzled out, with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella later calling the experience “the strangest thing I ever worked on.” President Biden then rescinded Trump’s executive order but told his administration to prepare recommendations to prevent a foreign adversary, like China, from seizing consumer data from apps like TikTok or WeChat.
So Trump and Biden are aligned on this issue?
No. Despite his executive order and arguing in 2020 that “you can’t be controlled, for security reasons, by China,” Trump now opposes a ban. At first, he was less concerned about foreign interference and more focused on a ban helping Meta and its CEO, Mark Zuckerberg.
“If you get rid of TikTok, Facebook and Zuckerschmuck will double their business. I don’t want Facebook, who cheated in the last Election, doing better. They are a true Enemy of the People!” Trump posted on his Truth Social network in March.
More recently, Trump was swayed by his growing popularity on TikTok. He has a “little bit of a warm spot in [his] heart” for TikTok because younger people like it so much and that demographic helped him electorally in the election, he said during a December press conference.
On Jan. 3, Trump posted on Truth Social: “Why would I want to get rid of TikTok?” alongside an infographic that touted how many views his own posts were getting on TikTok.
(Credit: Truth Social)
Chew has played into this narrative. “We are grateful and pleased to have the support of a president who truly understands our platform,” the TikTok CEO said on Friday. “One who has used TikTok to express his own thoughts and perspectives, connecting with the world and generating more than 60 billion views of his content in the process.”
Flattery and attention also appear to have helped the relationship between Trump and Zuckerberg. The Meta CEO reportedly called Trump “a lot” over the summer, according to Trump. More recently, Zuckerberg criticized the Biden administration over COVID social media crackdowns, and after Trump’s win, Meta made a $1 million donation to his inaugural fund.
This month, Meta dropped traditional fact-checking in favor of X-style Community Notes. “It’s time to get back to our roots around free expression and giving people a voice on our platforms,” Zuckerberg said. Trump’s reaction? Meta has “come a long way,” he says.
Can Trump stop the ban when he takes office?
Trump can’t stop this as easily as he started it in 2020 with his executive order. In urging the Supreme Court to pause the ban, he pointed to himself as uniquely qualified to weigh in on this issue since he is “one of the most powerful, prolific, and influential users of social media in history.” But social media users alone can’t overturn a law. Trump could ask the DOJ not to enforce the law when he returns to the White House (which is basically what Biden plans to do tomorrow). Or he could request that 90-day delay.
Can I get around this ban with a VPN?
Maybe. VPNs are usually your first line of defense to get around a ban; just ask Pornhub users. Streamers also use them to watch content that’s geo-blocked on services like Netflix, with mixed results. If the TikTok app is inaccessible, you could potentially tap into a VPN (we have some recommendations here) and load up TikTok on the web. But as The Wall Street Journal notes, you might run into trouble if TikTok is forced to eliminate US-registered accounts, so it’s likely not a long-term solution.
What are some TikTok alternatives?
Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube are still more popular than TikTok among social media sites, but that’s set to change, especially among younger users. “Facebook’s user growth rate is estimated to slow down in the next years, [and] users belonging to Generation Z appear to prefer video-first social platforms like Snapchat, TikTok, and YouTube,” according to Statista.
Trump may be right that Meta-owned sites stand to benefit from TikTok’s demise. The company has been pushing TikTok-like Reels hard on Instagram and Facebook, while YouTube has Shorts, and Snap has touted an increase in watch time on its TikTok-like Spotlight feed. But it’s TikTok’s algorithm that keeps people coming back and scrolling for hours, something Meta and YouTube have not replicated yet.
The uncertainty around TikTok has also benefited two Chinese-made apps, RedNote and Lemon8, though both may face the same data-collection concerns as TikTok.
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About Chloe Albanesius
Executive Editor for News
