After amassing more than 170 million users in the country in less than seven years, TikTok is now facing an outright ban in the US.
On 19 January, just one day before Donald Trump is set to be inaugurated as president, the country is set to become the latest to completely ban the Chinese-owned app.
TikTok’s parent company ByteDance is still attempting to reverse the ruling, and has three potential ways to avoid the nationwide ban. The first is for the US Supreme Court to reverse the decision. The second is to convince Trump to reverse the decision when he comes into office. And the third – though this appears increasingly unlikely – ByteDance can abide by the ruling and sell TikTok to a US-based owner.
If none of these happen, and the ban does come into force, the US would not be the first major market for TikTok to cut off the video-sharing app. In 2020, India issued a complete ban of the app that cut off around 200 million users. The Indian government cited privacy issues with the app, claiming that alleged ties between ByteDance and the Chinese government posed a threat to India’s sovereignty and security.
Other countries and areas, including the European Union, have put partial bans in place, which prevent government workers and military personnel from installing the app on their devices.
Various federal and state TikTok bans are already in place in the US, with lawmakers citing national security concerns. These fears have done little to stem TikTok’s growth in the US. The app has proved to be one of the most popular both in America and globally last year with 52 million downloads in the US and 733 million worldwide – despite more than 3 billion people around the world being blocked from downloading it.
This has helped bring the total number of TikTok users around the world to above 2 billion, with only India’s ban nearly three years ago slightly slowing its growth – and only temporarily.
A survey poll from the Pew Research Center last year found TikTok to be the fastest-growing platform in the US, as users beyond the social media app’s typically young demographic began to adopt it.
US adults who have TikTok accounts are increasingly using the app as a source of news, with roughly a third of people aged 18-29 regularly using it to consume news in 2023.
The FBI claims that Chinese state ties to parent company ByteDance could allow the app to “manipulate content” in order to spread harmful propaganda.
Fears around national security have been countered with questions about censorship, with the Electronic Frontier Foundation describing the prospect of a ban as a “seed of genuine security concern wrapped in a thick layer of censorship”.
The US digital liberties group has called on people to “resist a governmental power to ban a popular means of communication and expression”.
In its filing with the Supreme Court on Monday, TikTok alleged that banning the app would “shutter” one of the most popular speech platforms at a highly political moment.
“The act will shutter one of America’s most popular speech platforms the day before a presidential inauguration,” TikTok wrote. “This, in turn, will silence the speech of applicants and the many Americans who use the platform to communicate about politics, commerce, arts, and other matters of public concern.”
After the Supreme Court agreed to hear the challenge on Wednesday, a TikTok spokesperson said: “We believe the Court will find the TikTok ban unconstitutional so the over 170 million Americans on our platform can continue to exercise their free speech rights.”
