TikTok Reprieved By Trump

Uploaded on 2025-01-21 in TECHNOLOGY-Key Areas-Social Media, NEWS-Cybersecurity News, GOVERNMENT-National, FREE TO VIEW

The US Supreme Court has delivered a blow to TikTok by upholding a law that has put a ban on the video-sharing social media platform in the United States, and it has recently upheld legislation forcing TikTok’s Chinese parent company to sell the App or face prohibition in the US.

Now, incoming President Trump is reported likely to review and possibly stop the ban which affects over 170million US adults who use TikTok - almost one third of the adult population.

TikTok was shutdown in the United States on 19th January 2025 when the deadline expires for the platform’s Chinese owner ByteDance to either divest ownership or cease operations. However, the outgoing US President, Biden, will leave a decision over the future of TikTok in the US to president-elect Donald Trump, who took over the Oval Office following his inauguration on Monday 20th January 2025.

Trump has said he will find a way to save TikTok before a ban on the App is due to take effect, his incoming national security adviser has said.

It is reported that TikTok will "most likely" be handed a 90-day reprieve from a possible ban, just a day before the company said it would "go dark". Congressman Mike Waltz, a Florida Republican, said Trump would intervene if the Supreme Court upholds a law that bans the platform in the US unless it is sold by 19 January. In their last week, the Biden administration has been looking for ways to prevent TikTok suddenly disappearing.  "We will put measures in place to keep TikTok from going dark," Waltz told reporters.

The current the law allows a 90-day extension for ByteDance if significant progress has been made towards a sale, buying time to keep TikTok going whilst an alternative ownership for the platform is agreed.

Efforts to save TikTok have crossed partisan lines, with Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer saying he spoke with Mr Biden to advocate for extending the deadline to ban TikTok, a social media platform favoured by the younger generation. A day earlier the incoming national security adviser indicated that Trump was planning an executive order to suspend the ban. It is however unclear whether any such measure could circumvent a law passed by Congress.

The app has been banned on national security grounds, because of concerns that its data could be collected by the Chinese government, but it transpires that TikTok's CEO, Shou Zi Chew will attend Trump's Presidential inauguration in a position of honour on the dais.

Trump might seem to be a defender of TikTok, based on recent statements, but that has not always been the case. During his first term as president, he tried to ban the App. In an executive order in 2020 Trump claimed the App was capturing mass amounts of information about Americans and leaving it vulnerable to the Chinese government.

Image: Ideogram

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