Will TikTok go away, or is it here to stay? On Jan. 17, the Supreme Court unanimously upheld the federal law banning TikTok unless the app was sold by its China-based parent company, ByteDance.
The federal law held that the risk to national security overcame the concerns about limiting speech, and the ban was set to take effect on Jan. 19, 2025.
On Jan. 18, however, TikTok users in the United States were already prevented from watching videos on the social media platform just hours before the federal ban was supposed to take effect. It seemed TikTok took the platform offline themselves.
A pop-up message in the app stated, “A law banning TikTok has been enacted in the U.S. Unfortunately, that means you can’t use TikTok for now.”
In addition to the inability to access the platform’s content, the app was also removed from prominent app stores, including Apple and Google. The website told users that the video social media platform was no longer available.
TikTok, a short-form video platform, is widely popular in the U.S. and beyond. In the United States alone, over 170 million people use TikTok for entertainment and informational purposes. Worldwide, in May 2024, the platform had 1.04 billion monthly active users.
Arguments in support of the ban on TikTok are composed around the concern that national security is threatened by TikTok. The concern is that the Chinese government could use and/or manipulate the platform and the data it collects for its own motives.
Since the government’s specific evidence for banning TikTok has not been publicly released and remains classified, it is unclear whether the concern for national security holds any real validity.
On the other side of the argument, is TikTok and ByteDance’s claim that the ban taking effect would infringe upon the First Amendment and the right to freedom of speech of both the company and its more than 170 million American users.
They argue that even if there is a valid national security threat, that the government should consider alternative options that are less restrictive before choosing to ban the app altogether.
TikTok and ByteDance have also spoken out on the original stipulations of the ban, stating that ByteDance would need to divest from TikTok in order to prevent the ban from shutting the app down completely, they argue that since ByteDance controls TikTok’s algorithm, they cannot just divest from TikTok.
Doing so would thus jeopardize the future functionality of the algorithm, and completely alter the content offered on TikTok.
So, as TikTok faces increasing scrutiny, many are left wondering – what now?
Despite TikTok’s brief hiatus in the third week of January, a little over 12 hours later, the platform restored service after Donald Trump promised not to enforce the ban once he takes office.
Many U.S.-based users reported that the mobile app was once again working as of Sunday afternoon at about 1 p.m. EST.
Although it began working again, the app is no longer available for download on the iPhone App Store.
In a message posted by Apple, they state that TikTok will remain on the users’ devices if it has already been downloaded, but it cannot be redownloaded and the app will no longer receive any updates.
Apple stated, such downloads “could potentially impact performance, security, and compatibility” with the future IOS operating systems.
Though TikTok is back for now, it remains to be seen whether its availability to U.S. users will be temporary or permanent.
