Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
If anything, the TikTok saga in the US has definitely retained a healthy sense of drama.
As expected, the Supreme Court has today announced that he will support the decision approved by the Senate “The Protecting Americans from Apps Controlled by a Foreign Enemy Act“, which stipulates that TikTok and other apps owned by Chinese corporations operating in the US (with more than 1 million US users) must either be sold to US ownership or cease operating in the country.
That means TikTok will be shut down in the US on Sunday, it goes 170 million TikTok users in the US find some other way to spend their time.
Right?
Well, it seems not.
Banning TikTok is now the subject of renewed political strife, and outgoing President Joe Biden apparently wants to mitigate his responsibility for enforcing the billand Commander-in-Chief Donald Trump has promised to preserve the app for American users.
And it certainly seems like TikTok, at the very least, believes Trump has a plan.
It’s TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew, who will to be in attendance at Trump’s inauguration next weektrusting Trump to find a solution “that keeps TikTok available in the United States.”
So what exactly can Trump do?
Well, as noted, if the Biden administration doesn’t enforce the law and force the respective app stores to delist TikTok on Sunday, that could mean it will carry over to Trump once he’s inaugurated early next week. Technically, that’s not how it’s supposed to work, but again, reports have suggested that’s apparently what Biden’s team plans to do, to get around the problem.
Legal experts suggested that, after the inauguration, Trump could issue an executive order it would have ordered the agencies not to enforce the TikTok ban, effectively nullifying the approved bill, though it would also violate Senate-approved legislation and undermine a previous ruling.
That could cause tensions between Trump and other senators. But again, there is already a lot of tension there, so…
Trump, for his part, says that he talked to Chinese President Xi Jinping on Fridayand the two discussed TikTok, among other things.
He also said he was considering the situation:
So what does this mean for US TikTokers and the app’s prospects for growth?
Well, despite the legal ruling, it still looks like TikTok might not go out of business after all and might continue to operate smoothly after Sunday. But the application could also be shut down for a period of time, giving Trump more time to negotiate an alternative that meets the requirements of the approved law.
I suspect the latter is more likely, given the rule of law, but both seem to remain a possibility.
We’ll find out in two days.