On Jan. 18, due to Chinese control, the Supreme Court upheld a law to ban TikTok, a social media platform for sharing videos and ideas. The government was worried about American citizens’ personal/security information safety. However, according to the law, if TikTok were sold to an American owner by Jan. 19, TikTok wouldn’t be banned in the United States.
There had been rumors that TikTok would be banned, but nobody thought it would happen on a random Saturday. The ban was set to take effect on Jan. 19 at midnight, but it got a temporary ban on Jan. 18 around 10:00 pm EST. When the TikTok ban was initiated, other platforms owned by the same owners of TikTok, (Lemon8, a photo/idea sharing app, and CapCut, a video editing app) got a temporary ban as well, but for longer than TikTok was. The warning on TikTok stated, “We are fortunate that President Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution to reinstate.”
Trump’s inauguration was set for Jan. 20, and he pledged to get TikTok unbanned. His order only tells the attorney to not enforce the law for now. Trump has also talked about the idea of getting TikTok to be a joint-owned company. Nearly 14 hours later, it was back, but not for too long… President Donald J. Trump got TikTok back successfully, but only for a 90 day expansion. If TikTok gets bought or taken over by an American owner, TikTok will not get banned officially.
Once TikTok was banned, a lot of creators fled to other social media platforms. Instagram got a lot more users, and lots of people’s inboxes started flooding with follower requests.
After the ban, many people thought it was never coming back, so they decided to delete the app. Little did they know, they wouldn’t be able to redownload it until Feb. 13, 2024. Many people found a way to get TikTok back in the app store, by changing their phone’s location to Canada, or somewhere else outside of the U.S.
Although the TikTok ban was only for 12 hours, it affected many creators. Maybe 90 days will extend to more, or maybe TikTok will be gone for good.
