TikTok, a popular social media platform used to watch and post short videos, faced a 15 hour U.S. ban on the app; for fear of mass weaponization of the site through Chinese ownership stealing user data, the app went black on January 18th, 2025 and reopened January 19, 2025. Former President Biden signed the bill carrying out this ban in April 2024, while Congress passed it with strong bipartisan support.
Congress appealed to the Supreme Court, which ruled in favor of the bill by the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act. Congress, through passing this bill, gave TikTok nine months (from April 2024) to divest from its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, or be taken off U.S. app platforms. Despite TikTok, ByteDance, and other users suing the U.S. government for the suppression of freedom of speech, TikTok still went dark on January 18th. Mobile app stores–like Apple & Google–will face major fines if they continue to distribute this platform to users.
This ban was carried out as American buyers did not successfully purchase the app by January 19th. A prospective buyer included Kevin O’Leary, a popular entrepreneur regularly featured on CNBC’s Shark Tank. According to an interview held with the American Newsroom, he stated, “Right now, $20 billion’s on the table. Cash.”
Further input on the popular social media app comes from President Trump. He has stated multiple times that he has decided on the issue of the TikTok ban. As stated in an interview with CNN’s Pamela Brown, he has conversed with the Chinese President Xi Jinping, having a “great talk about TikTok and a great talk about many other subjects.”
TikTok CEO Shou Chew has also posted a TikTok video responding to Congress’s decision to ban the popular app, stating that he would continue efforts to maintain American access to the app with Trump’s support. The Biden Administration had made it clear that it would only support TikTok under domestic ownership. Chew further stated in his video “We are grateful and pleased to have the support of a president who truly understands our platform, one who has used TikTok to express his thoughts and perspectives, connecting with the world and generating more than 60 billion views of his content in the process.”
Many people flocked to another video app called REDnote whose official Chinese name translates to “Little Red Book,” a popular Communist text distributed by the late leader Mao Ze Dong. Since REDnote functions mainly in Mandarin, Americans were desperate to go to Duolingo to learn the language. Since the announcement of the U.S.’s TikTok ban, Duolingo has reportedly seen a 216% increase in U.S. users learning Mandarin on its app. While other platforms like Instagram Reels and YouTube expected an explosion in users, users are instead going towards alternatives like REDNote and Lemon8 whose apps have even closer ties to China.
President Trump, upon entering office, promised no enforcement of law and enactment of punishment for app services that distribute the app through an executive order. While these assurances have been made by Trump, many high-profile Republicans believe that in the long-run, a ban may be enforced. Furthermore, at the state-level, some efforts have been made to enforce this ban. Illinois State Representative Chris Miller introduced legislation earlier this month to help enforce the ban on state-owned devices. Whether or not such a ban would be successful is still debated.
As 170 million American TikTok users faced the ban, the temporary blackout of the app highlights a clash between protecting freedom of speech and ensuring user data security. Foreign alternatives to TikTok posed even greater risks of data breaches, potentially beyond the scope of U.S. government oversight. Meanwhile, the implications of such a ban on the First Amendment continue to spark heated discussions among politicians and TikTok users alike, for fear of its enforcement in the future.
