The Tik Tok Ban

In September 2016, ByteDance merged “Musical.ly” and “TikTok” while keeping the title “TikTok.” This merger led to the app holding 500 million active monthly users worldwide. By 2021, it reached 1 billion users, beating Instagram's record of 1 billion users in 7.7 years. Now, TikTok hosts 1.5 billion users, with 150 million being American users, making it the 5th most used social media platform globally.

During its rise, concerns grew about China’s influence on the app. In late 2019, The Guardian reported TikTok was recorded for censoring videos that “do not please Beijing” and banning accounts that had any sort of “demonization or distortion of local or other countries’ history such as May 1998 riots of Indonesia, Cambodian genocide, Tiananmen Square incidents.” These actions led many to question TikTok.

In August 2020, Trump issued an executive order on TikTok, threatening ByteDance with bans that could lead to loss of advertising from U.S. companies and the removal of the app from app stores. Trump’s rationale: “This data collection threatens to allow the Chinese Communist Party access to Americans’ personal and proprietary information…This mobile application may also be used for disinformation campaigns that benefit the Chinese Communist Party.” But later, in February 2021, Trump’s successor, Biden, revoked Trump’s order and replaced it with an order, calling for, “a broader review of [...] applications that could pose a security risk to Americans.” His rationale: “The new directive would establish ‘clear intelligible criteria’ to evaluate national security risks posed by software applications connected to foreign governments, particularly China.”

In April 2024, the Senate passed legislation that would force TikTok’s China-based parent company to sell the social media platform under the threat of a ban signed by then-President Biden. TikTok followed by suing the federal government, claiming that removing the app violated the First Amendment’s free speech protections. It also argued that the 270-day timeline it received was too short for a divestiture to occur. TikTok lost this lawsuit, having to comply with the 270-day timeline.

Now in January 2025, many are rushing for the chance to gain ownership of the US version of TikTok. One is “The People’s Bid for TikTok,” a group by Frank McCourt, former owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers, who sent ByteDance a deal to buy TikTok without its algorithm. ByteDance has shown no interest in their deal.

On the 10th of January, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments on TikTok’s ban. The main argument revolved around the idea that the ban goes against the First Amendment of all users, but the Justices did not buy this argument, arguing that “Congress was fine with users’ speech on the app but just not a foreign adversary gathering information about the app’s users.” They all continued to stress the risks of data collection saying “seems like a huge concern for the future of the country.” Later on the 17 of January, the Supreme Court announced the ban would be upheld. This meant TikTok would be removed from popular app stores like Google Play and the Apple App Store. In addition to this removal devices with TikTok would not receive any updates, which would slowly destroy the app.

On the 18th of January at 10:30 EST, millions across the United States were prompted with a statement that would close the app, as it was banned. Millions of people went into a panic. After 12 hours the app was unbanned after Trump—who in the past year began fervently supporting the app—vowed to delay TikTok’s ban through an executive order. Despite Trump’s promises, TikTok is still currently unavailable in app stores, as Google and Apple are awaiting additional protections before bypassing the ban.