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. 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.” If a deal is imminent as Jan. 19 approaches, the president can grant a 90-day extension. At least two US senators have asked Biden to do just that, but the White House is referring questions to the DOJ.
What counts as a foreign adversary?
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.
Why does the US care that a video app is owned by 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 Zi 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). Earlier this 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 as more and more services drop support.
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.
Who would buy TikTok to stop the ban?
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.
Didn’t we try this in 2020 with Microsoft?
Yes, in 2020, President-elect Donald 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.
What about Oracle?
When the Microsoft deal fell apart, TikTok struck a deal with Oracle to route its US traffic to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. “We still use our US and Singapore data centers for backup, but as we continue our work we expect to delete US users’ private data from our own data centers and fully pivot to Oracle cloud servers located in the US,” TikTok said in 2022. A TikTok ban could be a costly loss for Oracle, but it does not appear to be in the running to acquire the app.
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.
Meanwhile, flattery and attention appear to have helped the relationship between Trump and Zuckerberg. The Meta CEO reportedly called Trump “a lot” over the summer, according to Trump. Weeks later, Zuckerberg criticized the Biden administration over COVID social media crackdowns in a seemingly unprompted letter to GOP lawmakers. After Trump’s win, Meta also made a $1 million donation to his inaugural fund.
Is TikTok fighting the ban?
ByteDance denied a report that it would sell TikTok without its algorithm, and is challenging the ban in court on constitutional grounds. It points to the 7 million businesses a ban would “devastate” and the 170 million Americans who would be silenced.
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In April, Chew said the ban is “ironic because the freedom of expression on TikTok reflects the same American values that make the United States a beacon of freedom. TikTok gives everyday Americans a powerful way to be seen and heard, and that’s why so many people have made TikTok a part of their daily lives.”
So far, TikTok has not had much luck in the courtroom. A federal appeals court rejected its argument earlier this month. TikTok then requested that the ban be delayed until the Supreme Court weighed in, but the DC Circuit Court of Appeals rejected that, too.
What’s the next step?
The Supreme Court has agreed to hear arguments in the case on Jan. 10, giving TikTok just nine days to make its case and stop a ban. The court is limiting the scope of the arguments to one main question: Does the law violate the First Amendment?
Is banning TikTok unconstitutional?
That’s up to the Supreme Court, but TikTok can point to a law in Montana that banned the app from all devices, not just those provided by government agencies. In late 2023, US District Judge Donald Molloy issued a preliminary injunction to block that law before it went into effect because it “oversteps state power” and violates the Constitution in several ways. Montana has appealed, but the case has been on hold since May, Montana Public Radio reports.
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. For now, Trump is urging the Supreme Court to pause the ban and give him the chance “to resolve the issues at hand through political means once he takes office.” He points 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, so if the Supreme Court declines to strike down the ban, Trump could ask the DOJ not to enforce the law when he returns to the White House. He could also delay its implementation by 90 days if he can prove ByteDance is progressing toward a divestiture, CBS News reports.
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.
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About Chloe Albanesius
Executive Editor for News
