President-elect Donald Trump is considering implementing an executive order to delay a looming TikTok ban, while President Joe Biden faces bipartisan pressure to keep the app running in the U.S., reports say.
Newsweek has contacted the White House and Trump transition team for comment via email.
Why It Matters
TikTok, which has 170 million users in the U.S. alone, is set to shut down on Sunday, a move that could disrupt the creator economy for influencers who have built a following on the platform and a stream of income.
What To Know
The incoming and outgoing presidents have both expressed conflicting views about the popular social media app.
In his first term, Trump supported a TikTok ban. However, he has recently pledged to keep the platform alive and met with Shark Tank investor Kevin O'Leary and former Los Angeles Dodgers owner Frank McCourt over their offer to buy the app.
On Wednesday, The Washington Post reported that the president-elect was considering an executive order that would block the ban for two or three months. The order would keep TikTok running at least for a little while longer and give the new administration time to further negotiate the app's future in the U.S. with its parent company, ByteDance.
In April, Biden signed the Protecting Americans' Data From Foreign Adversaries Act into law, which allows the banning of TikTok. But according to an NBC News report, the president's administration is weighing its options for keeping the app available to Americans.
In his last few days in office, Biden has faced a bipartisan effort from Democratic Senator Ed Markey and Republican Senator Rand Paul, who have asked the president to give TikTok more time to find an American owner so that millions of Americans are not left without the app.
Why Is TikTok Facing a Ban
ByteDance, TikTok's owner, is a Chinese company, and U.S. lawmakers are concerned that usage of the app could lead to spying, political strife and other national security concerns.
The Protecting Americans' Data From Foreign Adversaries Act, which was introduced in 2024, has given TikTok a deadline of January 19 to either sell to an American owner and continue operating in the U.S. or be banned.
The Supreme Court is hearing a case about whether banning TikTok infringes upon the First Amendment, and justices appear poised to maintain the ban.
What People Are Saying
Senators Ed Markey and Rand Paul said in a December 19 letter to the president: "The stakes here are high: As a practical matter, even if the Court rules that the law is constitutional by the January deadline, ByteDance cannot divest TikTok in that limited time."
Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan said on January 10: "The law is only targeted at this foreign corporation, which doesn't have First Amendment rights."
What Will Happen To My Account if TikTok Is Banned
It is unclear what will happen to TikTok on Sunday, when the ban is scheduled to go into effect. The app may shut down entirely, but the implementation of the ban falls upon U.S. service providers, so it is up to them to follow through on making the app completely unavailable to users.
If the ban goes into effect, TikTok will no longer be available in app stores, meaning that even if users still have access to the app, they will not be able to update it in the future.
Many TikTok users are already leaving the platform for RedNote, another Chinese-owned short-video app similar to TikTok.
English (US) ·