The U.S. government may be inching toward a radical restructuring of TikTok, if not an outright ban on the Chinese-owned social media app. But to Jaci Butler, an internet personality and singer with 4 million followers on the embattled platform, the commotion is old hat.
“I’m just kind of shut off from it,” said Butler, 27, from Los Angeles. “I’m like: ‘No, there’s no way it could happen again.’ ”
And yet it does seem to be happening again. In 2020, then-President Trump — fueled by growing concerns about the app’s data privacy standards and ties to the Chinese government — began pushing for parent company ByteDance to spin off TikTok’s U.S. assets or face a total ban from the country.
