The confusing tale of TikTok’s death and resurrection

Sock image of a phone with TikTok open, the picture is obscured with a red circle and line through it. CREDIT: RICHARD STEPHEN
The future of TikTok remains up the in the air, but if there is one thing we know for certain, President Donald Trump will likely be involved in whatever comes next for the app.

TikTok, first established back in Sept. 2016, has recently been questioned, banned, and then very quickly unbanned in the United States.

The app, mainly known for its dancing trends, first came under fire in the US back in 2020. Then-president Donald Trump, who at the time was having a spat with China regarding the COVID-19 pandemic, threatened to ban TikTok, which is owned and operated by the Chinese government.

That ban finally came to fruition for—and I’m going to hold your hand while I say this—a whole 14 hours. So, Americans lost access to TikTok during this blackout period, but the ban was quickly lifted by, interestingly enough, President Trump.

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But how did the ban come to be and what does TikTok’s future look like?

Back in 2023, The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), spoke out against the app, saying the app posed a threat to US  national security, as they claimed it shared TikTok users’ data and information with China’s government.

Shortly after, TikTok was deleted off all government-issued mobile devices.

Later that year, the CEO of TikTok, Shou Zi Chew, appeared before legislators for a six-hour hearing, where he defended the nature of TikTok and batted off some of the confusing questions, including, “If I plug in my earphones into my phone while they’re in my ear, can TikTok know what’s going on in my brain?”

The claim that TikTok was a national security threat continued to gain momentum among members of Congress and a bill was proposed to ban TikTok or have it sold to a US-based company. The bill was passed shortly after by the House of Representatives, then the Senate and eventually, Joe Biden.

ByteDance, the parent company to TikTok, then hit back, suing the US Federal Government, saying the bill was unconstitutional.

On Jan. 17, the US Supreme Justices held a hearing where TikTok fought for its right to exist in the US, arguing the ban would infringe on the first amendment of free speech. However, the national security threats outweighed the threat to their first amendment, according to the Supreme Justices, who voted unanimously to ban the app.

It was around this time that president-elect Donald Trump, who had previously been very much into banning TikTok initially, announced that he would now be working to save the social media app.

Two days later, the ban was put into place for a whopping 14 hours before Trump, somehow, reversed the ban. American users regained access to the app, only to be greeted by the message that, “As a result of President Trump’s efforts, TikTok is back in the US!”

Trump has effectively delayed the ban by 75 days, giving ByteDance until April 5 to sell the company before another ban may be placed on the app.

Now if you have been keeping up to date, Meta CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, and owner of X/Twitter, Elon Musk, were both in attendance at Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 21. With Facebook now officially the owner of its own TikTok account, there has been much speculation as to what will happen to the app if it is sold to another billionaire currently in Trump’s pocket.

If the app is to be sold, the algorithm we have come to know and love would be lost, most likely leading many TikTok users to jump ship and look to other social media app options.

But for right now, we are just sitting and watching from the sidelines with a big bag of popcorn, waiting to see what becomes of the app where 170 million Americans live, play, and work.