TikTok Prepares for Full Shutdown in the U.S. Amid Federal Ban and Legal Challenges
Where will people post their dance videos?
Narcissistic TikTok dancers will need to swarm another social media platform soon in order to continue their self-adoration.
TikTok, the widely-used social media app owned by Chinese company ByteDance, is preparing to shut down its operations in the United States starting this Sunday due to an impending federal ban.
The move comes despite the law mandating only a restriction on new downloads from app stores like Apple and Google. TikTok’s decision would block existing U.S. users from accessing the platform altogether, redirecting them to a website explaining the ban and offering an option to download their personal data.
The federal law, signed by President Joe Biden in April 2024, requires ByteDance to divest its U.S. assets by January 19, 2025, or face a nationwide ban. ByteDance has pushed back, arguing the law violates the First Amendment by suppressing free speech, and has sought a delay on the ban’s implementation. The U.S. Supreme Court is currently reviewing the case but has shown signs of upholding the law.
The company’s decision to preemptively shut down contrasts with the legal requirements, which would have allowed existing users to continue using the app for some time while preventing new downloads. TikTok estimates that a prolonged ban could lead to a significant drop in user engagement, with as much as one-third of its 170 million American users potentially abandoning the platform within a month.
ByteDance, which is partially owned by institutional investors like BlackRock and General Atlantic, employs over 7,000 people in the U.S. The company has highlighted the economic impact of such a ban and continues to advocate for a political resolution, with hopes that incoming President Donald Trump will address the issue after his inauguration next week.
I don't expect the Supreme Court to intervene on behalf of ByteDance. There simply isn't a persuasive free speech case to be made--Congress isn't banning the platform per se, merely Chinese ownership of the platform as regards its US market. Congress is explicitly authorized to regulate foreign commerce, which means Congress does have the power to say if ByteDance can do business in the US or not.
I find it hard to believe that users and their twerking vids are a means to sabotage US national security, and given the predations that Meta and Google have made on user privacy, Congressional concerns over Chinese violations of user privacy seem hypocritically quaint.
What is telling is that both Joe Biden and Donald Trump have voiced interest in undoing or rolling back the ban, and there is speculation that Trump will instruct Pam Bondi not to enforce the ban, even as Trump's Secretary of State pick Marco Rubio testitifed before the Senate that without a more hawkish policy towards China, we will be conceding to China a fair bit of control over Americans' lives.
What will be interesting to see will be if Europe opts to follow suit with a TikTok ban of its own. The EU and the UK already banned the app from government-issued smartphones and devices last spring.
China does not have many friends in the world these days.
How will I function? If I can't drop off into the oblivion of TikTok what will I do? Will I have to make eye contact with my kids again? Wait, I don't know if I know how to relate as a human anymore. I may need time off from work? Or to file for disability. Withdrawal symptoms? Will there be a website that I can find those answers on? Oh no!