TikTok’s ban in the US could be getting reversed pretty soon.
The app went dark in the states today (19 January), with a message currently greeting users: "Sorry, TikTok isn't available right now. A law banning TikTok has been enacted in the US. Unfortunately, that means you can't use TikTok for now."
This came into place following a law President Joe Biden signed last April, giving the app a deadline to separate its US business from parent firm ByteDance, as the government saw the China-based company’s control as a national security threat.
After an appeal was rejected at the US Supreme Court earlier this week, the TikTok ban went ahead. But, with a new President set to come into force, things could quickly change.
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Donald Trump’s inauguration takes place tomorrow (20 January), and while he once favoured the ban, it seems the incoming president might reverse it immediately – with one new request.
The President-elect says he has plans to issue an executive order that would give TikTok’s China-based parent company more time to find an approved buyer before the platform is subject to a permanent ban in the US.
He announced this on a post on his Truth Social account as Americans awoke to find they could no longer access the app.
Trump says his order would ‘extend the period of time before the law’s prohibitions take effect’ and ‘confirm that there will be no liability for any company that helped keep TikTok from going dark before my order’.
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He wrote: “Americans deserve to see our exciting Inauguration on Monday, as well as other events and conversations.”
The law enables the sitting president to grant a 90-day extension if there is a viable sale under way. However, while some investors did make offers, ByteDance previously said it wouldn’t sell.
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Trump wrote in his post that he ‘would like the United States to have a 50% ownership position in a joint venture’. But it wasn’t quite clear from this if he meant the US government or an American company.
“By doing this, we save TikTok, keep it in good hands and allow it to stay up,” he wrote.
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“Without US approval, there is no TikTok. With our approval, it is worth hundreds of billions of dollars – maybe trillions.”
While Brits had worried the same ban would come into place here, the UK government said: “This is a matter for the US government. There are no plans to introduce a TikTok ban in the UK.
“We engage with all major social media companies to understand their plans for ensuring the security of UK data and to ensure they meet the high data protection and cyber security standards we expect.”
Topics: Donald Trump, Politics, Social Media, Technology, TikTok, US News, Joe Biden
Jess Battison