Following the Supreme Court’s ruling to ban TikTok on Saturday, January 18, President-elect Donald Trump promised to delay the enforcement of the law once he was inaugurated. This led to TikTok becoming usable again on Sunday, January 19.
According to CNN, TikTok was “unavailable on the Apple and Google Play stores, along with Lemon8 and CapCut, which are also owned by TikTok’s China-based parent company, ByteDance” (Duffy and Goldman, Jan 20). Additionally, beginning late Saturday night, American users began receiving a long message saying in part that “A law banning TikTok has been enacted in the U.S. Unfortunately, that means you can’t use TikTok for now,” (Duffy and Goldman, Jan 20). But within 14 hours it was back up with a pop up that reportedly said “Thanks for your patience and support. As a result of President Trump’s efforts, TikTok is back in the U.S.!” (Duffy and Goldman, Jan 20). Even though the app became useable for previous users again, Forbes says,
“The app continues to be unavailable for new downloads on both Apple’s App Store and Google Play Store. Additionally, ByteDance’s sister applications — including the video editing tool CapCut and the lifestyle-focused platform Lemon8 — remain inaccessible to U.S. users, highlighting the broader impact of the legislation” (Dedezade, Jan 20).
TikTok became available again because, as an article on BBC said, “US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order granting TikTok a 75-day extension to comply with a law banning the app if it is not sold” (Gerken, McMahon, and Rahman-Jones, Jan 22). The article went on to say that “Trump’s order does not overturn the ban…Instead it tells the US attorney general not to enforce the law for now” (Gerken, McMahon, and Rahman-Jones, Jan 22). Looking toward the future, an article on Forbes reported that “In [Trump’s] proposed framework via Truth Social on Sunday, Trump outlined a structure where ‘the United States gets a 50% ownership position in a joint venture,’” (Dedezade, Jan 20). As to who would buy the 50%, the Forbes wrote that “In March 2024, Trump’s former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said he wanted to put together a group to buy the app but it is not clear if he is still pursuing this” (Dedezade, Jan 20).
The United States is not the first country to try banning TikTok with an article on Indian Express reporting that Afghanistan, India, Nepal, and Somalia all enforce nationwide bans (Gupta, Jan 24). With at least 15 other countries experiencing varying degrees of bans on the app since its release, the U.S. marks the 20th nation to impose any form of a ban on TikTok.
