The end is nigh for TikTok…or is it? The ultra-popular social media platform stands on the precipice of a US ban that would wipe it from app stores and quickly make it inoperable on iPhones and Androids. 150 million users could lose access to audiences around the world and five million TikTok businesses could vaporize in an instant.
But it’s not that cut and dried. Last-minute saviors could arise, even in the form of those who first sought to banish the Chinese-owned app.
A little background here before we dive into the minute-by-minute machinations that hold TikTok’s future in the balance.
TikTok is a nearly decade-old social media platform that, in the US, started its life as Music.ly and was primarily a lip-syncing app (people made videos dancing and lip-syncing to their favorite pop songs). The app was bought by ByteDance, a Chinese software company, which quickly combined it with its own social media app and renamed it TikTok (in China, the app is called Douyin).
Not many people initially knew or cared about TikTok besides the teens who had previously used Music.ly. The Pandemic changed all that, though, as families were forced indoors and, with little else to do, turned to TikTok as both a creative outlet and digital community builder. The app’s popularity exploded, and it became a cultural phenomenon.
It was also around this time that US relations with China soured, and concerns about cyber espionage grew. A Chinese-owned app in the hands of virtually every American suddenly seemed like a very bad idea. At issue was the Chinese government’s open access to all technology and data of any company operating within its borders.
Then President Donald Trump signed an executive order in 2020 to ban TikTok in the US. The company responded by moving all data and operations related to the US version of the app inside the US. Oracle would host the data, and US-based employees would manage virtually everything else.
That was not enough, though, and eventually, President Joe Biden signed a law setting a timeline to force TikTok to sell by January 19, 2025, or be banned in the US.
Now, the final hours are winding down, but here’s where things get interesting. We’re about to give you the latest on TikTok’s fate in the US. Stick with this live blog for all the breaking developments.