The saga continues…
As anticipated, U.S. President Donald Trump has as soon as once more signed an government order that can give TikTok an additional 90 days to discover a U.S.-based companion, with a purpose to adjust to a legislation which states that each one entities owned by TikTok mum or dad ByteDance are successfully banned within the nation.
As per the White Home press launch:
“The enforcement delay laid out in part 2(a) of Govt Order 14166 of January 20, 2025, is additional prolonged till September 17, 2025. Throughout this era, the Division of Justice shall take no motion to implement the Defending Individuals from International Adversary Managed Purposes Act, or impose any penalties in opposition to any entity for any noncompliance with the Act.”
So the legislation continues to be in place, however the authorities gained’t implement it, with the Lawyer Common to offer written assurances to Apple, Google and different suppliers that they gained’t get fined for internet hosting TikTok.
TikTok has welcomed yet one more extension:
“We’re grateful for President Trump’s management and assist in guaranteeing that TikTok continues to be out there for greater than 170 million American customers and seven.5 million U.S. companies that depend on the platform as we proceed to work with Vice President Vance’s Workplace.”
Because the White Home launch notes, the extension will now give TikTok until September seventeenth to give you a U.S. sale association, or it’ll as soon as once more face a full ban within the U.S.
Or, possibly, Trump will simply lengthen it as soon as extra.
Up to now, Trump has appeared greater than keen to maintain on signing new government orders, with a purpose to hold the app operating within the U.S., holding off on enforcement of the Senate-approved legislation, in contravention of the lawmaking course of.
However as President, he’s empowered to make that decision, and authorized specialists say that it’s unclear what number of occasions he can lengthen the deadline. And with Trump noting that he has “a heat spot” in his coronary heart for the app, which he’s additionally claimed helped him win the 2024 U.S. election by maximizing his reference to younger voters, it doesn’t appear to be the app’s going to get minimize off anytime quickly, regardless of the invoice.
Certainly, come September, will probably be over 250 days since TikTok was formally banned within the U.S., and but, it’ll nonetheless be working within the area as regular. Latest U.S.-China commerce preparations might assist to ease tensions on this entrance, and facilitate an eventual deal. However actually, given what we’ve seen so far, it doesn’t appear to be TikTok’s going anyplace both method.
Which isn’t fairly the peace of mind and safety that creators and types utilizing the platform ideally want.
However for now, the nice TikTok-U.S. saga continues.
The entire ordeal has really been dragging on for years, beginning again in 2019, when preliminary authorities bans of the app have been applied.
As a contextual refresher, right here’s a full timeline of the saga:
- As famous, all through 2019, amid rising concern about TikTok’s potential ties to the Chinese language authorities, varied U.S. officers introduced bans and restrictions on the app on government-owned gadgets, marking the primary indicators of government-level considerations concerning the safety of the app.
- In August 2020, within the midst of the COVID pandemic, U.S. President Donald Trump stated that he could be transferring to ban TikTok within the U.S. completely, so as, he initially claimed, to punish China for the unfold of the virus.
- After the U.S. authorities oversaw varied bids for the app, TikTok seemed prefer it was near being bought to Oracle in September 2020, however following his inauguration in February 2021, incoming U.S. President Joe Biden deserted the TikTok sell-off push, citing irregularities and inconsistencies within the course of.
- The Biden Administration then initiated a full safety evaluate of the app, which led to new requires TikTok to be banned resulting from undisclosed nationwide safety considerations.
- In November 2022, the then-head of the FBI informed a Home Homeland Safety Committee listening to that the bureau has “nationwide safety considerations” concerning the U.S. operations of TikTok, noting particularly that “the Chinese language authorities may use it to manage knowledge assortment on tens of millions of customers or management the advice algorithm, which may very well be used for affect operations in the event that they so selected.”
- In March 2023, a bunch of U.S. senators launched a invoice to handle the safety risk posed by TikTok. In the identical month, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew appeared earlier than the Home Committee on Vitality and Commerce to plead the case that TikTok is complying with U.S. knowledge safety necessities.
- In October 2023, U.S. senators referred to as on TikTok to clarify its resolution to put Chinese language Bytedance employees into key roles at TikTok, seemingly contradicting its claims of independence.
- In November 2023, U.S. senators as soon as once more raised considerations about TikTok amid allegations that it was selling pro-Palestinian content material.
- In January 2024, media reviews steered that TikTok was nonetheless sharing knowledge with China, regardless of the corporate’s denials.
- In February 2024, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew once more appeared earlier than the U.S. Senate, the place he confronted extra questions concerning the knowledge obligations of the corporate.
- In March 2024, the Home of Representatives handed a invoice that will give ByteDance six months to divest the U.S. property of the short-video app, or face a ban. The invoice handed 352-65 in a bipartisan vote.
- Later that month, nationwide safety officers held closed-door briefings with U.S. senators to focus on the risk posed by TikTok
- In April 2024, the U.S. Senate permitted the “Defending Individuals from International Adversary Managed Purposes Act,” which “prohibits distributing, sustaining, or offering web internet hosting providers for a overseas adversary managed software (e.g., TikTok),” amongst different measures. The ultimate vote on the invoice was 79 to 18 in favor.
- Quite than discover a sell-off, TikTok as an alternative opted to problem the invoice in court docket, and in Could 2024, TikTok launched its authorized case in opposition to the legislation, suggesting that it unfairly targets TikTok and ByteDance, for no cause exterior of the “hypothetical chance” that the app poses an precise risk.
- In December 2024, a U.S. appeals court docket rejected TikTok’s bid to disqualify the U.S. authorities’s enforced sell-off invoice,
- In January 2025, the Supreme Courtroom upheld the appeals court docket’s resolution on the TikTok invoice.
- In his last days in workplace, then-President Joe Biden stated that he wouldn’t look to implement the TikTok ban on January nineteenth, 2025, when it went into impact, leaving it to incoming President Trump to motion as he noticed match.
- TikTok went offline on January nineteenth, amid uncertainty about potential enforcement. The app was down within the U.S. for about 20 hours.
- Following his inauguration as President, Donald Trump issued an government order that granted TikTok an extra 75 days to work out a U.S. sell-off deal.
- In April 2025, Trump granted TikTok a second 75-day extension through government order.
Which brings us to at the moment, with TikTok nonetheless clinging to its Trump life-raft within the U.S., and hoping that the entire thing will simply go away someway.
It’s additionally price noting that it’s by no means been clarified what risk, precisely, TikTok poses as the premise for this legislation, as the total shows proven to senators by cybersecurity officers have been withheld from the general public. The three areas of concern are the hyperlinks between TikTok and the Chinese language authorities, TikTok’s knowledge assortment practices, and Chinese language overseas affect operations inside the app. Which of those is taken into account the larger concern, nonetheless, and to what extent U.S. authorities have detected such, we don’t know, which is one other component that’s added to the continued confusion.
And on the similar time, TikTok’s nonetheless attempting to sway U.S. senators in its favor, even sending a former WNBA participant to have interaction with Texas legislators in Austin not too long ago, and advocate on its behalf.
I imply, a 6’4” lady is actually a novel messenger, however with the legislation already enacted, there’s not likely something native senators can do both method.
However clearly, TikTok stays assured that it’ll nonetheless be round, and with one other extension of its negotiation interval, it does appear to be it would.
