TikTok ban: What's next for app after Trump intervention?
A smartphone with a displayed TikTok logo is placed on a computer motherboard in this illustration taken February 23, 2023. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic
What’s the context?
TikTok is back in U.S. app stores but the future of the short-video app is still uncertain despite delay on ban.
LONDON - TikTok has returned to Apple and Google's U.S. app stores weeks after President Donald Trump delayed a ban of the Chinese-owned video-sharing app.
Millions of U.S. users can now download the app and update it again.
The app temporarily went dark in January before a law requiring owner ByteDance to either sell it or face a ban due to concerns over national security and algorithmic influence was due to come into effect on Jan. 19.
TikTok has denied that it has or ever would share U.S. user data.
Trump signed an executive order on Jan. 20, delaying the law's enforcement by 75 days. This allowed TikTok to continue its operations temporarily, but Apple and Google still removed the app from their stores to protect against potential liability.
Analysts said the delay to returning TikTok to app stores could have been because Google and Apple were awaiting assurances that they would not be prosecuted for hosting or distributing the app.
Trump is considering extending the 75-day delay but has said he doesn't think that will be necessary as he believes a buyer will be found.
"I'm going to make it worthwhile for China to do," he said. "I think it would be to China's advantage to have the deal be made."
Other countries have already banned the app.
Here are more details about the restrictions on TikTok:
What does the U.S. ban mean for US users?
TikTok was made briefly unavailable in the United States late on Saturday, with users unable to view videos, but it has since returned online. Other ByterDance-owned apps, such Marvel Snap, remain offline.
Trump's executive order directed the Justice Department to issue letters to companies like Apple, Alphabet's Google and Oracle that work with TikTok "stating that there has been no violation of the statute and that there is no liability for any conduct that occurred during the above-specified period".
But users still cannot download the app. They can access content if it had already been installed on their device before the ban. Over time, without software and security updates, the app will become unusable.
Under the law, Apple and Google risk fines of $5,000 per user if they host TikTok.
"Apple is obligated to follow the laws in the jurisdictions where it operates," a support page states.
When asked what the TikTok order does, Trump said it "just gave me the right to sell it or close it," adding that he needed to make a decision.
The president has previously said he would want the United States to have "a 50% ownership position in a joint venture" should TikTok be sold by ByteDance.
Despite the initial ban being passed unanimously, U.S. lawmakers on both sides have said that ByteDance should have more time to divest the app.
But Republican senators Tom Cotton and Pete Ricketts argued there was no legal basis for an extension to the law's effective date.
"For TikTok to come back online in the future, ByteDance must agree to a sale that satisfies the law's qualified-divestiture requirements by severing all ties between TikTok and Communist China," they said in a joint statement.
Demonstrators stand on the day justices hear oral arguments in a bid by TikTok and its China-based parent company, ByteDance, to block a law intended to force the sale of the short-video app by Jan. 19 or face a ban on national security grounds, outside the U.S. Supreme Court, in Washington, U.S., January 10, 2025. REUTERS/Marko Djurica
Demonstrators stand on the day justices hear oral arguments in a bid by TikTok and its China-based parent company, ByteDance, to block a law intended to force the sale of the short-video app by Jan. 19 or face a ban on national security grounds, outside the U.S. Supreme Court, in Washington, U.S., January 10, 2025. REUTERS/Marko Djurica
Where else has TikTok been banned?
The United States, Britain and several European Union bodies have already all imposed bans solely on government devices, but other countries have gone further.
In November, Canada ordered TikTok's business in the country be dissolved, citing national security concerns, but it has not blocked users' access to the app.
Iran, Afghanistan and Somalia have banned TikTok, as has Senegal, which took action in 2023 following the arrest of opposition leader Ousmane Sonko. The government said the platform was being used to distribute "hateful and subversive messages" that were threatening the stability of the country.
In December, Albania announced a year-long TikTok ban after a 14-year-old boy was stabbed to death by a fellow student after the two reportedly clashed online.
India banned TikTok in 2020. Pakistan has issued four temporary bans, with the most recent ending in November 2022.
Nepal also banned the app, with authorities saying it was disrupting "social harmony" and goodwill.
Taiwan, which prohibits a wide range of Chinese business operations, has banned the app on state-owned devices and in December 2022 opened an investigation into TikTok over suspected illegal operations on the island.
TikTok is unavailable in China, where citizens use its Chinese equivalent Douyin. While the two apps work similarly, content is not shared between them, and Douyin remains under tight censorship.
A woman who used to post on TikTok before India banned it, makes a video with her daughter to upload on an Indian app, inside their house in Mumbai, India, July 1, 2020. REUTERS/Hemanshi Kamani
A woman who used to post on TikTok before India banned it, makes a video with her daughter to upload on an Indian app, inside their house in Mumbai, India, July 1, 2020. REUTERS/Hemanshi Kamani
Does TikTok pose a national security threat?
TikTok is only of espionage value when used on the devices of people connected to national security functions, according to a report published in January 2023 by Georgia Tech's Internet Governance Project.
But other digital experts have pushed back on the report's conclusion.
"It is naive to think there is enough separation for a commercially motivated native enterprise to not effectively be a tool of the Chinese state," said Bryson Bort, chief executive of U.S. security firm Scythe.
"There is interest in direct relationships with national security, but it looks like from my optic that they are building a database to correlate information around any person," he told Context in emailed comments.
A report from Forbes magazine in 2022 found that ByteDance had used the TikTok app to track multiple journalists to discover the source of leaks.
"It was a real through the looking glass moment that changed all our interactions with the company," said Chris Stokel-Walker, a British journalist and author of TikTok Boom.
But, he said, no one had yet proven that Chinese authorities were handling Western users' data.
TikTok has said "these bans are misguided and do nothing to further privacy or security."
Will other countries ban TikTok?
Other countries that have close security relations with the United States have not decided to implement TikTok bans.
Australia, which is part of the "Five Eyes" security alliance that includes Canada, New Zealand and the United States, said it had not received advice from its security agencies to ban the app.
Britain, which is also a member of the network, has not banned the app.
"We won't be following the same path as the Americans unless or until ... there is a threat that we are concerned about in the British interest, and then of course we will keep it under review," Chief Secretary to the Treasury Darren Jones told the BBC on Jan. 18.
However, countries could now follow the U.S. lead, Walker said.
"It's the closest we can get to unofficial sanctions against a tech company, and countries won't want to feel left out," he said.
"What that means for everyday users is probably not much. It's notable that with all the clamour about cybersecurity from the EU, there has been no word of reassurance or concern for ordinary users."
This article was updated on Thursday, February 14, 2025 to include TikTok's return to Apple and Google app stores
(Reporting by Adam Smith and Rina Chandran, Editing by Jonathan Hemming, Clar Ni Chonghaile, and Ana Nicolaci da Costa.)
Context is powered by the Thomson Reuters Foundation Newsroom.
Our Standards: Thomson Reuters Trust Principles
Tags
- Content moderation
- TikTok
- Tech regulation
- Social media
- Data rights