The TikTok ban kicked in on Sunday, as scheduled. This means that a social media platform used by more than 150 million Americans a day on their iPhone or Android went dark.
But will it stay dark?
Why a TikTok ban?
The U.S. Congress passed the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act in April 2024 targeting TikTok. It requires its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to sell the U.S. division of the video/social media service to an American company by Sunday, January 19.
Amid a worsening trade war between the two countries, Congress worried that the Chinese government could use TikTok to spread pro-China propaganda and misinformation to users of the app, or use ByteDance’s customer records to target Americans.
If that seems unreasonable, note that the Supreme Court pointed out in its ruling approving the ban, “ByteDance Ltd. is subject to Chinese laws that require it to ‘assist or cooperate’ with the Chinese Government’s ‘intelligence work’ and to ensure that the Chinese Government has ‘the power to access and control private data’ the company holds.”
TikTok ban goes into effect
Photo: Ed Hardy/Cult of Mac
No sale of ByteDance’s U.S. division took place by the deadline, and the company doesn’t show much interest in doing so, so the terms of the PAFACA Act went into effect early Sunday.
As part of this, Apple removed TikTok from the iPhone and iPad App Store, along with every app made by ByteDance. As it noted in a statement, “Apple is obligated to follow the laws in the jurisdictions where it operates.” The same goes for Google and its Android software marketplace.
But that’s not all. Those who already have the app currently find a popup screen that says, “A law banning TikTok has been enacted in the U.S. Unfortunately, that means you can’t use TikTok for now.” The popup can’t be dismissed, making their app unusable.
ByteDance took this step because federal law enforcement can use the PAFACA Act to levy hefty fines on internet service providers who enable TikTok to reach their customers after a ban goes into place.
Ban might be temporary
Sunday marks the last day of the Biden Administration, and the President says he won’t enforce the TikTok ban. Instead, that will be left up to the incoming Trump Administration.
Trump originally led the attack on TikTok during his first administration, but since reversed himself.
“You know, I have a warm spot in my heart for TikTok because I won youth by 34 points, and there are those that say that TikTok has something to do with it,” Trump said in December. (He actually lost among young voters, but not as badly as he did in 2020.)
The legislation gives Trump the power to delay enforcement of the PAFACA Act for 90 days, and he told NBC on Saturday that he’ll probably do that. That means TikTok might be available again as early as Monday… for a while.
Trump might come to ByteDance’s rescue
After that, Trump can order the Justice Department not to enforce the law, but he use a presidential decree to repeal a law passed by Congress. Even if Trump assures Apple and Google that there’ll be no penalties if they put TikTok back in their app stores, they’d still be violating the law by doing so.
Trump can urge Congress to repeal the law, but that’s likely to be an uphill fight. The PAFACA Act passed the House of Representatives 360-58 and the Senate 79-18 — overwhelming margins in both houses.
Another option is actually finding a U.S. buyer for the U.S. division of ByteDance. Trump supporter Elon Musk (who already owns rival social-media service X) reportedly talked to the Chinese company about the prospect. A big stumbling block, though, is that ByteDance doesn’t seem interested in selling to anyone.
ByteDance instead pinned its hopes on the incoming president. The new popup screen blacking access to its app notes, “We are fortunate that President Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution to reinstate TikTok once he takes office. Please stay tuned!”
While China’s President Xi Jinping expressed his support for ByteDance and TikTok, what he can do is limited. He certainly can’t retaliate by threatening to kick social media services owned by U.S. companies out of his country — all of these were banned in China years ago, long before there was any talk of a U.S. TikTok ban.
