TikTok on the Clock: What’s Going on with the World’s Most Influential Social Media Platform?

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Sunday was an interesting day for TikTok users – and for TikTok itself.

When a U.S.-based user tried to log into the hugely popular app, which many businesses use for advertising, a message popped up that said TikTok was no longer available to U.S. residents, and the app would not allow access.

Then, by the afternoon, the app was working again – but it still was not available in the app store. So, for users who deleted the app in frustration, their accounts are still live, but they do not have a good way of accessing them.

Why did all of this happen? And what’s in store for this influential social media platform that many creators use to earn income? Read on.

Banned in the U.S.A.

Back in April, the Biden administration passed a ban on TikTok, with a large bipartisan majority, citing national security concerns. China, the U.S.’s geopolitical rival and notorious intellectual property thief, had easy access to a wealth of constant data from 170 million users in the United States. Of course, this had spying implications, personal privacy concerns, and caused worries of how else China might think to use all of this information, but that wasn’t all. Many critics of the Chinese-backed app cited the danger of allowing a hostile foreign nation to be the gatekeeper of media and news for such a large portion of our nation’s youth.

It has been suggested that there is already at least some propagandizing of the U.S. youth going on (i.e., allegations that anti-marriage and anti-family content gets boosted in the U.S. but blocked in China), for the purpose of cultural destabilization. In the event of actual war (God forbid), lawmakers are concerned that China could do tremendous harm inside the U.S. through their algorithm manipulation.

The ban went all the way to the Supreme Court, which upheld the law, saying that this was not an issue of the First Amendment, but rather an issue of national security. Critics of the decision, such as the ACLU, claim this is in fact a violation of free speech and blasted the decision.

So Why Is It Back?

The Biden administration has made clear in its last few days in power that they will not do anything to enforce the ban, choosing instead to leave that up to the incoming Trump administration. Trump, for his part, has promised to issue an executive order to delay the ban by 90 days. On the strength of these promises that companies will not be punished in the meantime for giving service to TikTok, it’s back in service, but Apple and Google, apparently, aren’t taking any chances just yet, and still won’t allow users to download it, as of Sunday night.

Trump’s attempt to delay the ban may not be so easy, however. Supporters of the ban, such as Senator Tom Cotton, have said that Trump lacks the legal right to delay the law, and he issued a warning to companies thinking about going along with the app’s reinstatement:

“Any company that hosts, distributes, services, or otherwise facilitates communist-controlled TikTok could face hundreds of billions of dollars of ruinous liability under this law,” he said in a comment on the situation.

Some have speculated that TikTok will continue providing service, but Apple and Google will not provide the app for download nor allow updates to it, so eventually, even without an actual blackout, the app will stop working eventually.

The law banning TikTok has a contingency that says if ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, sells it to an American company, the app can remain in use in the U.S.A. ByteDance, however, has said that they will not divest the U.S. division of TikTok nor sell it because doing so would give another entity access to its proprietary content algorithm.

What Happens Now?

No one knows how this is going to shake out in the next several days, or even over the next few months. President Trump has attempted to take action against TikTok for national security purposes in the past, but the deal he brokered fell through. This past election cycle, Trump changed his tune on the ban, so it is difficult to say what is going to happen – or if this really even depends on the president at all.

Some 3 million U.S. users fled to Chinese social media app “RedNote” in the wake of TikTok’s brief period of inaccessibility. Ironically, these “TikTok refugees” may need to run somewhere else again, as this Chinese-backed data-collecting social media app has also caught the eye of U.S. regulators.
For the time being, it’s safe to say that you probably shouldn’t plan any big marketing campaigns around TikTok until all of this shakes out. Reaching Gen Z online may require a bit more creativity in the future.

All we know for sure is that Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk are likely celebrating the turmoil and possible downfall of their biggest competitor. Besides that, what happens to this economic engine is anybody’s guess.

Quick Hits

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• Wall Street appears unimpressed with early holiday retail numbers.
• Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta will lay off 5% of its staff in a performance-based layoff, alongside a statement that 2025 will be an “intense year” for the company.
• The New York Times gives a helpful overview of the current global trade imbalance, particularly between the U.S. and China.
• Christian-branded tech company Gloo acquired an AI chatbot called “Faith Assistant” for its church and ministry clients to use to connect with visitors online.
• Will Phoenix, Arizona become the next Silicon Valley?
• President Trump released a memecoin, which exploded in value last week. Some have raised ethical concerns over the cryptocurrency project.

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