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TikTok Is Available in the US Again After Trump’s Assurances - adtechsolutions

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TikTok Is Available in the US Again After Trump’s Assurances


So after months of Senate hearings, months of legal challenges and years of investigations into the app’s cybersecurity, TikTok’s US ban has been upheld for around 8 p.m.

Today, TikTok is back up and running for most US users, after it was cut off late yesterday pursuant to the US Government Clearance Act.

TikTok renewed in the US

President-elect Trump even gets a direct shout-out in a pop-up notification when Americans open the app, which he’ll no doubt love because it portrays him as a hero.

But to clarify, TikTok is not actually back. Well, at least it’s not business as usual.

Over the weekend, the new Trump administration forced companies that enable TikTok in the US (i.e. app stores and back-end providers) to continue supporting the app, violating sales account.

According to Trump:

I ask the companies that TikTok does not stay in the dark! On Monday, I will issue an executive order to extend the time period before the legal bans go into effect, so we can make a deal to protect our national security. The order will also confirm that there will be no liability for any company that helped prevent TikTok from going dark before my order.

Despite Trump’s assurances, Apple and Google did refused to return TikTok to their app storesdue to the risk of violating the legal text of the bill, for which they could be liable for financial penalties.

Because like the document states:

It shall be unlawful for an entity to distribute, maintain or update (or enable the distribution, maintenance or update) of an application controlled by a foreign adversary. An entity that violates subsection (a) is subject to a civil penalty in an amount not to exceed the amount resulting from multiplying $5,000 by the number of beneficiaries.”

So it’s pretty clear, the law is being enforced by enforcing civil penalties on providers who enable this, which is what Trump is asking them to ignore and says he’ll protect if they do.

And while Trump’s assurances weren’t enough for the app stores, they are apparently enough for Oracle, which hosts TikTok’s data and supports the app’s day-to-day functionality.

Which means TikTok is functional again for most US users who have already downloaded the app, but it’s not available for anyone else to download.

So, TikTok isn’t really back, but it is in a way and people can use it again.

But it could become a legal minefield in retrospect, with a future president effectively advising these providers to break the law for their own funds. And since Trump isn’t actually president yet, he can’t really offer such guarantees, and there’s also the question of whether he’ll actually be able to extend the timeline for the sale of TikTok to its US owner retrospectively, after the bill has already been passed.

That could become a major headache for Trump’s team and for Oracle, which is counting on Trump to save it from prosecution. But Trump is confident he can get around the law and also negotiate a better deal, which would then keep TikTok available in the US while still addressing the concerns raised in the Foreign Adversaries Controlled Apps Act.

Although TikTok and its Chinese owners may not have been overly excited about this element Trump’s discussion of the application:

I would like the United States to have a 50% ownership position in the joint venture. By doing this, we are saving TikTok, keeping it in good hands and allowing it to stay active. Without US approval, there is no TikTok. With our approval, it’s worth hundreds of billions of dollars—perhaps trillions.”

So Trump sees this as more of a financial deal than a security concern, which could see TikTok lose a significant portion of its local revenue to a Trump-approved American user.

And if the US government enacts such a law, other nations will likely seek to implement it, ostensibly to protect local users’ data, but also to reap direct financial and tax benefits.

As such, it seems we still have a long time to go before TikTok makes a “comeback” as such. But it’s more likely, in general, that TikTokers won’t need to find an alternative solution.



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