TikTok, the highly popular app with 170 million American users, went quiet on Jan. 18 for 14 hours. While it didn’t last as long as people expected, it was still a shock for the American people as their nightly scroll pastime was cut short.
Back in 2020, President Donald Trump proposed the TikTok ban. TikTok has been challenged as a national security risk because U.S. lawmakers believe that the Chinese government could pressure Bytedance, a Chinese internet company and parent company of TikTok, to give them American data. In April 2024, former President Joe Biden signed a law that would ban the Chinese-owned company unless it was sold in a year.
In Biden’s final days as president, the Supreme Court upheld the TikTok ban with a unanimous vote. Biden saved the decision of TikTok for President Trump, who was once anti-TikTok and now wants to save the $50 billion app – which is really interesting, after seeing Trump become buddy-buddy with all of those millionaires.
TikTok updated its American users with the unfortunate message that TikTok had been shut down, followed by a biased message: “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!”
This feels so politically biased and feels so uncommon for a CEO to name-drop the help they’re getting from the president.
While TikTok users were managing the loss of their favorite app, other users were finding their new spot in the comfort of Rednote. Rednote is a Chinese social media site with a layout similar to Pinterest and Instagram and with an algorithm like TikTok. I think the last thing the American people need is to find a new app to cling to. Don’t we have enough brain rot?
TikTok came alive again early afternoon on Jan. 19 for users who still had it downloaded. People were already congratulating Trump even though he wasn’t in office yet, making this whole situation feel like a PR stunt for the Trump administration.
I can already start to find myself not being on TikTok as much as I was before the ban. I was fully expecting TikTok to be gone for at least a week, but 14 hours makes it feel like a prank.
The next question leaves confusion for many. If TikTok is supposed to be banned, how is it back, and for how much longer?
On Jan. 20, Trump issued an executive order to not enforce the TikTok ban for 75 days, which gave ByteDance more time to sell off the app. Then on Feb. 13, TikTok was restored in app stores. But it may get kicked out of the door again in less than 75 days unless it finally gets bought out.
